Artesia General Hospital and TTUHSC Launch Family Medicine Residency to Grow New Mexico’s Rural Physician Workforce

Southeast New Mexico is about to gain new ground in the effort to grow its own doctors. Beginning July 1, Artesia General Hospital (AGH) will serve as a training site for two family medicine resident physicians, Dr. Zobia Aijaz and Dr. Elmer Carrillo Baro, through the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) Permian Basin Family Medicine Rural Residency Track.

The partnership adds new physician-training capacity in a state that produces far fewer doctors each year than it needs, and it does so in a Texas-New Mexico collaboration aimed squarely at the region’s rural communities. For Artesia and the surrounding area, it is a direct investment in keeping care close to home.

“This is a milestone moment for Artesia General Hospital and for healthcare in Southeast New Mexico,” said Joe Salgado, MD, chief executive officer of Artesia General Hospital.

“As a family medicine physician who came home to practice in the community I grew up in, I know what an experience like this can do for a young doctor, and for the patients they will one day serve. We are honored to welcome Dr. Aijaz and Dr. Carrillo Baro, and we are proud to partner with TTUHSC Permian Basin to help build the next generation of physicians for the communities that need them most.”

Both residents arrive with clinical depth that belies their stage of training. Dr. Aijaz is an academically active physician who has co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles in medical journals, with training spanning cardiology, pulmonary and sleep medicine, pain management, and psychiatry.

Dr. Carrillo Baro brings years of hands-on experience caring for patients across primary care, emergency, and community settings, including procedural training and community health outreach, and he is fluent in Spanish, an asset for many patients across the region.

Their range reflects exactly the kind of well-rounded preparation that family medicine, the front line of community healthcare, demands.

AGH joins the residency program as a training site accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the national body that sets standards for physician training in the United States. Residents at AGH will train in a community hospital environment with a clinical breadth that is unusual for a hospital of its size.

AGH operates two robotic surgical platforms, the Mako system for orthopedic procedures and the newly added da Vinci 5, and offers specialty services including endocrinology, urology, behavioral health, hyperbaric wound care, sleep medicine, the Vibrant Women’s Clinic, and a hospitalist program.

The need is clear. Nearly every county in New Mexico, including those across Southeast New Mexico, is a federally designated primary care Health Professional Shortage Area, and more than 45 percent of the primary care residents the state trains leave to practice elsewhere.

Programs like this one are designed to change that. Family medicine residents who spend at least half of their training in rural settings are five times more likely to practice in rural communities, according to research published in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education. In short, training physicians in Artesia is one of the surest ways to keep physicians in Artesia.

“This collaboration creates meaningful learning opportunities for resident physicians while also helping address the healthcare needs of rural communities across our region. It reflects TTUHSC Permian Basin’s mission to train physicians where they are needed most,” said Dr. Ikemefuna Okwuwa, TTUHSC-Permian Basin, Family Medicine Residency Program Director.

A detailed overview of the partnership, including resident biographies, the rural training track curriculum, AGH’s role as a training site, and answers to common questions about resident-supervised care, is available at artesiageneral.com/artesia-general-hospital-texas-tech-launch-family-medicine-residency.

About Artesia General Hospital

Artesia General Hospital is a 25-bed nonprofit community hospital founded in 1939. AGH is DNV accredited and Great Place to Work certified, the only hospital in New Mexico to hold the certification. The hospital serves patients across Southeast New Mexico, including Artesia, Carlsbad, Roswell, Hobbs, and surrounding communities in Eddy, Chaves, and Lea counties. For more information, visit artesiageneral.com or call 575-748-3333.

About the TTUHSC Permian Basin Family Medicine Rural Training Track

The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) Permian Basin Family Medicine Residency Program offers a 1+2 Rural Medicine Training Track. Residents complete their first year of training at a core program site, then spend their final two years training in rural communities across West Texas and Southeast New Mexico.

The track is designed to prepare family medicine physicians for practice in rural and medically underserved areas. For more information about TTUHSC Permian Basin Family Medicine, head to www.ttuhsc.edu/medicine/odessa/family.