Touro College of Medicine has opened a new Montana branch.
Touro-Montana is located in Great Fall, MT, is now accepting applications for its inaugural class of 125.
New Touro Medical School in Montana Opens Application Cycle for Fall 2023 | Touro University
Rocky Vista College of Medicine has received approval from COCA to open a new campus located in Billings, MT.
RVU-MCOM is currently accepting applications for the Class of 2027.
And a new one in Colorado (U of Northern Colorado).
The rocky mountain region will be well cared for.
Do you know if residency spots are increased when new med schools are opened?
No, there is no automatic increase in residency spots when a new med school opens.
But there is currently an excess of first year residency positions. In the 2022 Match, 36,277 first year residency positions were available. There were 28,337 US medical grads (MD and DO combined) in 2021. (Number of grads for 2022 not yet available.)
The excess positions are filled by US IMGs (US citizens who studied medicine abroad) and FMGs (Non citizens who graduated from foreign medical schools)
The U of Northern Colorado has been approved by the state, but hasn’t yet opened or received preliminary accreditation from COCA.
The greater issue may pertain to the limited number of Montana physicians available to support the clinical training opportunities essential to the portion of a medical education that occurs prior to graduation from medical school. It seems that the presence of an established allopathic school (WWAMI) and the two new osteopathic schools, in not-for-profit and for-profit variations, will test the available hands-on training resources of a state of one million people, or at least there will be accusations thereof.
@WayOutWestMom can comment. But in these states, some rotations are done elsewhere to satisfy requirements.
Even U of Wash sent students to do rural rotations in other states.
I think the new schools will be able to find rotation placements for their students. Perhaps they had to show that this was the case to get applications approved.
Rocky Vista MCOM has partnered with St. Vincents Healthcare (SCL Health) to provide rotation sites for its students. SCL is a multi-state health care system serving Colorado, Montana and Kansas.
MCOM claims it will establish 500 rotations sites in Montana within the next 4 years. (I’d take that claim with a whole pound of salt.) Students in the initial few classes will be offered the option to rotate to RVU’s Colorado sites.
I have no idea where Touro-Montana plans to send its 250 students for rotation.
Nope. While the LCME (which accredits allopathic medical schools) requires proposed new med schools to prove they have the resources for provide clinical training for students, COCA (which accredits osteopathic med schools) does not.
It’s much easier, faster and cheaper to open a DO program than a MD program.
My daughter’s boyfriend’s brother (close relation, right?) was in the first class to go to the OD school in Idaho. It gave preference to applicant’s from Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and a few other western states. He was from Wyoming. I know he did his rotations in Montana so there is some history with having supervised positions there. I think many locations will be excited to have medical students there.
OD for optometry? Or DO for medical school?