GARY | The effort to bring medical residencies to Northwest Indiana is moving forward as the funding has been raised to conduct a feasibility study on the project.
Pat Bankston, associate dean of the medical school at Indiana University Northwest in Gary, recently brought in $150,000 from several local hospital systems and health care centers to complete the first phase of the study.
"The fact that we have so many agencies involved means they understand the potential of residencies for what it could mean for the kind of physicians we have here, the quality of health care for our citizens and a long-term solution for the physician shortage," he said.
Medical residencies are the post-graduate training doctors have to undergo before they become licensed to practice. The med school at IUN recently added third and fourth years, but once those students graduate they have to do their training elsewhere, since Northwest Indiana currently has no residency slots.
Bankston has been trying to change that, by attempting to garner enthusiasm (and funding) from local health centers and hospitals that would host the residencies as part of a consortium, thus saving them money on administrative costs. Four hospital systems in downstate Evansville have a similar arrangement.
Bankston is hosting a kickoff meeting with the participating organizations Tuesday in Merrillville. They are Community Healthcare System, Methodist Hospitals, Porter Health Care System, Indiana University Health LaPorte Hospital, Community Healthnet, HealthLinc, Regional Mental Health Center, Porter-Starke Services and Edgewater Behavioral Health Services.
Health-care consultancy firm Tripp Umbach will conduct the first phase of the study, which will determine how many and what kind of residents Northwest Indiana can support. A state law was passed earlier this year that will provide matching funds for residency slots; the federal government also reimburses some of the cost.
Bankston said while the project is still in its early stages, it has the potential to be the culmination of decades of work to expand medical education in the region.
"We started in 1972 with four faculty and four students," he said of IUN. "We added the second year of medical school in the '80s, with 10 or 12 faculty."
"Now we have a third and fourth year of medical school, with 32 students in the entering class," he added. "This is the class of 2019, and it's entirely possible that they will be able to apply for residencies in Northwest Indiana."