It’s official: Billings Clinic’s new internal-medicine program has earned accreditation.
The program, designed to train primary-care physicians in the region, is the first of its kind in Montana and Wyoming. It has been accredited for three years by the Chicago-based Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, the maximum length of time for an initial accreditation. It was one of only four internal-medicine residency programs throughout the nation that achieved accreditation.
At full capacity, the residency program could be producing as many as six new doctors a year.
The hope is that those new doctors will choose to practice in Montana, where most counties have a shortage of primary-care physicians and 10 counties have no physician at all.
The startup investment of “several million dollars” will be underwritten by Billings Clinic, Billings Clinic Foundation and grants.