Dr. Brigham Willis, UT Tyler School of Medicine founding dean, and UT Tyler president, right, signs the UT Tyler and Christus affiliation agreement on Tuesday. (Raquel Villatoro/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Christus Trinity Mother Frances Health System and UT Tyler School of Medicine signed an affiliation agreement to provide hands-on experience to medical students and expand access to care in East Texas on Tuesday.

UT Tyler President Dr. Julie Philley signed the affiliation along with Christus and UT Tyler representatives. In addition, U.S. Sen. for Texas John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Nathaniel Moran (TX-01), came to the signing.

Starting in January 2025, UT Tyler School of Medicine students will begin 12-month rotations at Christus hospitals and Christus Trinity Clinic locations.

“This collaboration allows us to have greater access to a number of different clinical specialties including pediatrics. I’m really excited,” said Dr. Brigham Willis, UT Tyler School of Medicine founding dean. “And I’m really excited that the school is able to partner with systems across the region, private practices, big groups, different hospital systems, because that’s what we’re here for is to serve the healthcare needs of everybody.”

The students will receive multi-specialty training in different specialties from pediatrics, family medicine, cardiovascular surgery to anesthesia. UT Tyler medical students get hands-on experience starting their first year through rural rotations. The bulk of clinical rotations occur in their third year of medical school, when the students get to learn about different specialties.

“When you finish medical school, you’re generally trained but it’s important to know [all the specialties],” Willis said. “Because when you go out as a doctor, even me as a pediatrician, I have to know what’s involved in being a surgeon, what’s involved in doing internal medicine, or whatever so that I can work effectively with other doctors in the system and understand their specialty.”

Due to the lack of primary care physicians in rural areas in East Texas, the rotations will emphasize primary care. The students will work with primary care doctors for 40 weeks. Afterwards, they will switch to other specialties. Christus plans to take in a third to half of the UT Tyler School of Medicine class in their clinics, said Dr. Brent Wadle, Christus Trinity Clinic Vice President of Physician Operations and Institute Chair of Primary Care.

The goal with having medical students do rotations in rural clinics is so they want to stay and practice in these smaller towns. Wadle did his residency in Winnsboro in 1997. At the time, there were eight doctors; now there are only two. Doctors are harder to recruit in places like Winnsboro due to pay. However, Wadle hopes this partnership helps recruit more physicians who stay in those places.

“I want to make medicine in that small town as good as it can be,” Wadle said. “And it was always my dream. And now I get to partner with folks like this and we get to do it even more. I just can’t tell you how excited I am for med school because their students are going to start in our clinics, rural clinics and community clinics in January. And I’m going to tell you, it just thrills me because now those students get to see what I saw when I was in practice and they’re gonna start loving those communities and train here and come back here after residency after fellowship and practices.”

They look forward to students training in their internal medicine residency program. In the future, they hope to recruit students for the program, said Dr. John McDonald, Christus Trinity Clinic Chair Academic Institute and Director of Physician Operations, Resident Clinic and Internal Medicine. This partnership also allows students to train at other Christus locations in Corpus Christi and San Antonio and come back to East Texas, McDonald added.

Christus currently has 170 residents and 400 medical students training in their facilities. They are excited about adding UT Tyler School of Medicine students.

In the future, McDonald hopes working with the medical students and his residents they can use point of care ultrasound technology to help lower costs for patients. Through the partnership, Christus residents can benefit from the programs and resources UT Tyler School of Medicine has like their simulation lab and graduate medical education programs.

“We’re hoping that this relationship will help us train not only their medical students but also their residents and fellows in those sub specialties,” McDonald said. “I think all the physicians that train in Tyler should have access to great facilities and great teachers that we have in our system.”