Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center has been granted accreditation to develop a Family Medicine Residency Program.

Accredited by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education, the program will begin in July 2024, recruiting physicians who have graduated medical school and giving them the opportunity to continue their medical education in order to become board-certified in Family Medicine. The initial class will begin with 4-6 residents and eventually mature to 16-18 residents, within three years.

Appointed as Southwest Health Designated Institutional Official (DIO) is Lucius M. “Luke” Lampton, MD, FAAFP. A longtime Magnolia family physician and member of the State Board of Health, Dr. Lampton said, “This new residency program will impact our community in transformative ways. Southwest Health will become an academic medical center, which will prove to be critical for the medical development of our institution and our area” and added, “When fully achieved, the program will support 18 resident physicians each year, as well as bring many new faculty to our community. They will live here, eat at our restaurants, attend church with us, and contribute both to the economy and to the quality of everyday life here.”

Resident physicians will provide the same care as physicians who practice in the area now, including taking medical histories, performing physical and medical examinations, interpret lab results, write prescriptions, and perform medical procedures under the supervision of an attending physician. Residents will be supervised throughout the length of their training by Southwest Health fully licensed board-certified physician faculty.

The three-year training program will consist of rotations in various specialties ensuring residents become familiar with a wide array of medicine. The rotations will be in 13 four-week blocks. Residency programs operate on an academic year from July 1 to June 30. Each fall students will apply to programs across the country with interviews beginning in October. Final ranking lists ranked by each program and each student will be submitted for the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). The NRMP uses a computerized mathematical algorithm to place applicants into the most preferred residency and fellowship positions at programs that also prefer them.