EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Over 100 students from Texas Tech Health El Paso participated in “Match Day” and 119 medical students nationwide will be coming to El Paso to serve as resident doctors.
A record 21 Texas Tech students will stay in El Paso to continue their residency, according to Texas Tech Foster School of Medicine.
“I’ll be staying here in El Paso as an internal medicine resident and a future physician for my community,” Joshua Torres, a Foster Scholar and soon-to-be-three-time graduate at Texas Tech Health El Paso, said.
According to Texas Tech, roughly 50,000 medical students nationwide participated in “Match Day,” where students get to learn where they will be placed for their residency.
“Match Day marks both the conclusion of medical school and the start of a new chapter,” Richard Lange, president of Texas Tech Health El Paso and dean of the Foster School of Medicine, said. “These students have persevered through significant challenges, and while many will continue their training across the country, a record 21 graduates will begin their medical careers here in El Paso.”
“When I arrived 10 years ago, no students matched in El Paso. Today, 20 percent of the graduating class will stay in West Texas, where they are most needed. The trajectory of growing our own health care heroes is definitely moving in the right direction,” Lange said.
According to Texas Tech, El Paso County is experiencing a physician shortage. But that’s been reduced from 75 percent below the national average to 60 percent, which Texas Tech calls “significant progress.”
“When our graduates match to a program here in El Paso, these homegrown health care heroes are physicians already familiar with our community’s needs,” Charmaine Martin, associate dean for student affairs at the Foster School of Medicine, said. “In that same light, each new resident who moves to our region from out of state to complete their residency enhances health care access. Regardless of their hometown, they are doctors serving patients who might otherwise go without care.”
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