A Passion for Primary Care
The Class of 2019 graduates are officially resident physicians, and two-thirds of them are serving in primary care.
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edical students achieve many milestones throughout their four years of medical school. Day by day, week-by-week, monthby-month and year-by-year, there are moments and events along the way that shape the trajectory of their academic career and future as a physician.
Graduation and Match Day are two of the most highly anticipated events of the medical school journey. They signify the closing of one chapter and the exciting start of another. For many students, the third and fourth-year rotations solidify the area of medicine in which they’re most passionate and want to serve. And for many recent graduates of Campbell University’s Jerry M. Wallace School of 4 MAY - JUNE 2019
Osteopathic Medicine, that passion is primary care. “I chose primary care because I want to be able to treat all generations of people, and [serve as] the liaison for a person’s overall health and well-being,” said Dr. Cora Owen, family medicine resident at Bon Secours Health System in Midlothian, VA, and graduate of the Class of 2019. “Primary care allows me to make lifelong connections with people that I wouldn’t get as often in another specialty.” Sixty-five percent of the Class of 2019 graduates matched into a primary care residency, including: internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, or obstetrics & gynecology, and 57% of the Class of 2019 will be in residency programs throughout the Southeast United States.
Although hundreds of newly graduated physicians are entering residencies each year, North Carolina still faces a physician shortage. North Carolina is projected to need an additional 1,885 primary care physicians by 2030. The physician shortage largely affects rural and underserved areas, and often has a domino effect on whole communities. “The biggest issue to serving rural and underserved [communities] is access— making sure patients have access to quality health care and services to provide them with the best care possible,” said Dr. David Tolentino, associate dean for clinical affairs at the medical school. “As a primary care physician, that individual is the initial gatekeeper
