Rural Residency Planning and Development Program - Applicant / Sponsoring Institution: Doctors Hospital at Renaissance, Ltd. dba DHR Health Address / Location: 5501 S. McColl Rd., Edinburg, TX 78539 ACGME Sponsor Program Code: 489651 Project Director / Designated Institutional Official: Jessica Martin, MD, MHSA Contact: 956-362-2426, jg.martin@dhr-rgv.com; 1000 E. Dove Ave, Ste. 201, McAllen, TX 78504 Website: https://www.dhrhealth.com/ Eligibility / Facility Type: For Profit Organization / Rural Health Clinics Program Pathway: General primary care and high-need specialty Residency Specialty: Internal Medicine Residency Format: New Rural Track Program (New Program Accreditation) Rural Target Area: Starr County, TX Funding Amount Requested: $750,000 Program Sustainability Option: 1, 3 & 4 Projected Total Number of Residents: 6 Expected ACGME Accreditation/ Residency Matriculation Dates: 01/24/2026 and 07/01/2026 Funding Priority Points Requested: One HRSA Award given to the Family Medicine Rural Track Program in 2024 (HRSA-24-022) ABSTRACT Doctors Hospital Renaissance, Ltd., doing business as DHR Health, is the largest underrepresented minority owned and operated health system in the nation. Located in South Texas, DHR Health was founded in 1997 to aid over 1.5 million residents in accessing healthcare within the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), a largely Hispanic border town region that historically lacked public hospitals. DHR Health has steadily grown and now serves over 300,000 patients annually across 4 counties: Starr, Hidalgo, Cameron and Willacy. As a 500+ bed Level 1 Trauma Center, DHR Health provides the full continuum of care including women’s health and Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs. DHR Health operates as a safety net health system, serving the needs of urban and rural communities. Starr County, a rural, high need geographic region within the RGV is underserved with HRSA designations of Medically Underserved Area (score: 53) and Health Professionals Shortage Area for Primary Care (score:16). The population is 65,000 with a median age of 26. Of the population, 97% identify as Hispanic and 51% live below the poverty line. With a patient to physician ratio of 4,020 to 1, the greatest healthcare need in Starr County is primary care and access to secondary or specialty care due to limited resources and a lack of specialists within the county, leading residents to travel long distances for medical care. In 2020, the Texas Department of State Health Services released a Physician Supply and Demand report revealing that in the South Texas region, general internal medicine, pediatrics, and psychiatry are projected to have critical shortages. The Internal Medicine (IM) physician shortage in South TX is projected to have the greatest increase in deficit from 146 FTE physicians in 2018 to 240 FTEs in 2032. In July 2020, DHR became an ACGME Sponsoring Institution and since then has launched 10 accredited residency programs and fellowships. To meet the critical IM physician shortage and healthcare needs of Starr County, DHR will expand GME programs to this service area. DHR will partner with Starr County Memorial Hospital and local clinics to establish a new 2-2-2 Internal Medicine (IM) Rural Track Program (RTP) addressing the critical shortages of medical subspecialties in the South Texas region, including cardiology, pulmonology, and nephrology. DHR is requesting funding priority 1 for geographic distribution to train residents for greater than 50 percent of total training time in Starr County in Texas. DHR will provide a solution to the workforce shortage in Starr County by creating a new source of primary care and subspecialty providers to the physician pipeline in this area, increasing access to care for the rural and underserved. DHR will recruit faculty for the new IM RTP by December 2025; develop a curriculum emphasizing a rural geographic distribution by January 2026; establish an ACGME accredited IM RTP to begin training re
