The Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society Med Journal May 2019 Final 2 | Page 7

in the nation,” said Dr. Speights. “The challenges
are great, and we’re not naïve to think we can go
in there with a couple of outreach programs and
truly turn things around. But we have to start some-
where, and we have to start today.” 
Some of NYITCOM’s work in the Delta happens
through rotation and residency programs. Short of
running residency programs of its own, the school
supplies resources that support programs in its
vicinity. “Through our partnership with Arkansas
State University and our parent institution, we’re
able to provide resources like access to online
medical libraries, a full simulation lab, faculty de-
velopment, graduate programs, and the capacity to
host speakers and events related to specific resi-
dency programs. We also support them by partner-
ing with them on grants, scholarly activities, and
research programs that align with our mission,”
said Dr. Speights. Indeed, through a USDA research
grant, NYITCOM partners with St. Bernard’s Inter-
nal Medicine Residency Program, Arkansas State
University School of Health Professions, and UAMS
Family Medicine Residency Program in northeast
Arkansas to deliver health screenings and health
education to rural areas through NYITCOM’s Delta
Care-a-van.***
The medical school feels a responsibility to
provide vital health education and problem-solving
support to K-12 and undergraduate programs and
community and civic organizations. Toward this
end, students are routinely sent into the community
(classrooms, Lions Clubs, Rotary, etc.) to educate on
topics like the importance of vaccines, hand wash-
ing, physical activity, and the spread of disease.
“We believe this is just one way that our students
can start changing health outcomes long before
they graduate,” said Dr. Speights.
Now that NYITCOM’s inaugural class has en-
tered rotations, students are experiencing firsthand
the disparities of the Delta region and some are
already committed to serving the region. Rotations
are possible through relationships with roughly 150
hospitals, clinics, and individual physicians who
provide training in the real world – a valuable step
that helps students like Clayton Preston choose a
path. “I did my undergrad in Jonesboro and estab-
lished some roots there, so I had my heart set on
staying there for my rotations,” said the third-year
student. However, things changed during Preston’s
rotation in his home town of Pine Bluff. At Jefferson
Regional Medical Center, where he was born and
had worked his first job in the hospital cafeteria,
Preston felt a call to serve there as a pediatrician.
“I’ve been exposed to so many cases that have pro-
vided unique learning opportunities, and I’ve had a
During a recent Interview Day in Jonesboro, medical students Megan Patel and
Colton Eubanks explain how NYITCOM at A-State uses fully-functioning mannequins
in their training.
great experience in Pine Bluff. Things work out the
way they’re supposed to.”
Nothing can replace training that comes from
rotations, Dr. Speights indicated. “Physicians – par-
ticularly those in underserved areas – are truly on
the front lines of health care – treating the sick,
maintaining the well, and making a difference in
the lives of patients and their families. Our students
appreciate the education they receive by witness-
ing that care that’s being provided. We make a
concerted effort to rotate our students into areas
like Arkadelphia, Gravette, Pocahontas, Mena, Mon-
ticello, Crossett, and many others.”
A New and Fast-Growing
Medical School
Affiliated with Arkansas Colleges of Health Ed-
ucation, ARCOM is housed on 228 acres at Chaffee
Crossing in Fort Smith. Founded in 2014, the school
welcomed its inaugural class in August 2017 and
is currently educating its second class. Each class
size is 150 students, from a large-and-growing ap-
plicant pool.
Students are excelling thus far, with average
MCAT scores of over 500 and an average GPA of
more than 3.5. The student population is roughly
50% male and 50% female, with 15% underrepre-
sented minorities. Around 65% of enrolled students
come from within the school’s service area of Ar-
kansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.
Frazier Edwards, MPA, is the executive direc-
tor of ARCOM Clinical Resources and Continuing
Medical Education. He is excited to share that AR-
COM has the fastest growing applicant pool of any
medical school in the country. As for reasons why,
Edwards points to the school’s “shiny and new”
state-of-the-art facilities, faculty, and helical team-
based curriculum.
ARCOM’s mission, according to Edwards, is
to “serve the underserved” and help solve public
health issues facing Arkansas – specifically, physi-
cian shortages. Authors of a 2018 guest editorial
published by the Arkansas Foundation for Medical
Care touched on such shortages, particularly in
rural areas of the state. “Several trends are driv-
ing this shortage,” wrote authors Ray Hanley, AFMC
president and CEO, and AFMC Board Chair Stacy
C. Zimmerman, MD, FACP, FAAP. “An increased
number of Arkansans have access to health care
through the Medicaid-expansion program, Arkan-
sas Works. Our population is aging, and the older
we get the more medical services we use … an-
other reason is more than a third of all active phy-
sicians will be age 65 or older during the next 10
years, and many will retire.”
Working toward solutions, ARCOM focuses on
producing primary care physicians. “There’s a cliff
coming,” said Edwards. “That’s why we’re here. We
must start now to plan for 10 to 15 years from now.
A student will go through medical school followed
by residency. That’s a minimum of seven years and
oftentimes more depending on the specialty. Doing
this now will help lessen the cliff and ensure that
we won’t go through dips in access or quality of
care. In our curriculum, we try to ensure that stu-
dents are aware of the need in these areas.”
ARCOM’s third-and-fourth-year rotations al-
low students to discover and learn from systems
already in place. “We’ll send them to a large hos-
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