Welcome New Residents (and Fellows)

Good morning!

Today I’d like to offer an enthusiastic welcome to those who have decided to commit the next several years of their lives – and maybe many more – to our patients in Mississippi and at the Medical Center: Our new residents and fellows.

These 169 first-year residents – fresh and eager and right out of medical or dental school – will begin their specialty training that will prepare them for their future careers as physicians or dentists. First-year residents, usually referred to as interns, start their clinical duties today. What they learn will prepare them for the future no matter where they ultimately decide to practice. This includes all specialties ranging from anesthesiology to urology, from pediatric dentistry to oral maxillofacial surgery.

Also arriving soon, on July 6, will be 34 fellows. Fellows are post-residency physicians and dentists who have decided to pursue sub-specialty training. All told, there are 562 residents and 118 fellows, learning and working here. They are the responsibility of the Office of Graduate Medical Education. For dental residents, GME staff coordinates with the School of Dentistry.

Leading our Graduate Medical Education or GME Office is Dr. Jimmy Stewart, professor of internal medicine and pediatrics, and associate dean of graduate medical education. Dr. Stewart also serves as the Designated Institutional Officer, or DIO, for UMMC. You may also know him as the host of “The Original Southern Remedy” on MPB Think Radio every Wednesday at 11 a.m. Dr. Stewart went to medical school and completed his residency at UMMC. In addition, Dr. Brad Ingram and Dr. Marc Majure also serve as assistant deans for GME, working closely with Dr. Stewart.

We are extremely proud of GME’s record, before and after Jimmy took it on in the fall of 2017. As he put it: “We have really accomplished fellows and residents who finish their training here and take great care of patients in our state and elsewhere. Some have joined our own workforce at UMMC and have been fantastic faculty members.”

Like just about everything else at the Medical Center, GME has grown over the years. Nineteen years ago, when Dr. Shirley Schlessinger took the role of leading GME, we had 32 programs. By 2016, under 13 years of her excellent and thoughtful leadership, that number had swelled to 61 programs with 650 residents/fellows. Today, there are 64 programs at the Medical Center accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for 680 residents/fellows.

Allow me to share a few more facts about this immensely vital piece of our education mission:

• Oldest residency programs, in order: pediatrics, internal medicine, surgery. All were born in 1956.
• Demographics: Female, 57 percent; male, 43 percent
• Residents from in-state medical schools: 241 (210 from UMMC; 31 from William Carey University)

It’s important to note that residents are not just learners; they provide important patient care and also teach our students. They are employees and, as such, receive salaries, along with benefits, from a variety of sources, including the federal government through Medicare. The portion paid by Medicare has been unchanged since 1997, so all increases in resident salaries since then has come from other sources, such as some hospitals and major sites like the VA Medical Center, where we send some of our residents for training. The remainder (and vast majority) is covered by this hospital. 

Growing our student numbers along with a planned and careful growth in numbers of residents and fellows has been an important strategy for us since 2003. We know this is the most proven way to ultimately increase the number of physicians taking care of patients in Mississippi. It’s an important investment in our workforce and in our state and a key part of our commitment to build A Healthier Mississippi.