$ 200,000 in student loan debt.
Rhode Island doctors make less than their out-of-state counterparts too. According to the Rhode Island Foundation, private employer-sponsored health plan reimbursements are much lower here: an average of $ 188 per outpatient service in Rhode Island, compared to $ 202 in Massachusetts and $ 266 in Connecticut. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates are also lower in Rhode Island, and have been stagnant, even as health care costs have risen. As a result, Rhode Island had the lowest average physician salary in the United States.
For doctors who enjoy living in Rhode Island, there’ s nothing but a short commute stopping them from earning 30 percent more just over a state line.“ It’ s a huge difference in being able to support your staff and support yourself,” McGarry says of these pay disparities.
But for those who do stay,“ what draws them more is the community and the people and their colleagues,” she adds, plus ease of living in the state. As a native Rhode Islander and Brown alumna, McGarry can’ t imagine living or working anywhere else, even if she knows there are challenges for others making the same choice.
THE DRAW OF THE OCEAN STATE Brown’ s internal medicine residency program graduates 10 residents a year. Of those, anywhere from zero to four stay in the state to practice medicine each year, McGarry says. In academic year 2022 – 2023, of 106 graduates from primary care residencies in Rhode Island, only 15 planned to provide primary care in Rhode Island.
Jenna Georgiou, MD, knew from when she was 8 years old, growing up in a small town at the Jersey Shore, that she wanted to become a doctor. She realized early in her medical training that she wanted to work in family medicine. In one class, she practiced taking blood pressure on an actor, who was playing the role of a patient as part of their training.( See story, page 10.) Afterward, the actor broke character and said that she made him feel safe.
At that moment,“ I knew that this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life,” Georgiou says. She knew that seeing not just patients but families, and being a constant in their lives, where they could share their vulnerabilities with her because of trust built over time, was her ideal way of practicing medicine.
That’ s what she does now, as a family medicine doctor at Brown Health Medical Group Primary Care – Hillside in
Pawtucket. She’ s also a clinical assistant professor of family medicine at Brown, where she tries to help her students figure out if the pace of family medicine work is right for them.“ Do you want to see someone once in the emergency room on the very worst day of their lives? Or do you want a continuity of care with entire families?” she asks them.
For her, the answer was the latter. One group of her patients, for example, is four generations of the same family living in a multi-generational home in Pawtucket.“ I’ m a big part of their lives,” she says.
She’ s also fallen in love with living in Providence. She and her husband, an artist and entrepreneur, only have one car because they walk or bike everywhere. While that kind of lifestyle influenced their decision to stay in Rhode Island, it was mostly Rhode Islanders— whom she describes as hard-working, salt-of-the-earth people who remind her of the Italian American population from her hometown— who made her stay.“ They’ re just really good people and very open with their lives,” she says.
Dillon, who works with Georgiou at the Pawtucket practice, also wanted to be the kind of doctor who would be there for someone through the duration of whatever health problem they may have. You’ re someone’ s doctor instead of just another clinician.
“ As a specialist, you don’ t really get to say,‘ I’ m that person’ s go-to person,’” Dillon says.“ I really wanted a holistic approach to care taking... and ideally taking care of the whole family.”
She did consider practicing in Massachusetts, where her husband works, but even if the pay would have been higher, she knew how much she was needed in the state.“ I really just wanted to stay in Rhode Island and be one little drop in the ocean of keeping more providers here,” she says.
Daniel Walden, MD, is originally from Georgia, but it wasn’ t a stretch to come here. Like Dillon, he has family in Rhode Island, and his parents were about to move to the state when he was deciding where to rank programs in the National Resident Matching Program, the main system used in the US to place medical school graduates into residency training programs. He put Brown first.
“ It was nice to relocate at the same time they were,” he says.“ It’ s the first time in my adult life I’ ve really lived in close proximity to my family.”
He also knew he wanted to be a doctor from a young age, despite a diversion into natural sciences. But after working in the field, and traveling where he learned about
18 HEALTH DISCOVERIES @ BROWN l FALL 2026