Rural Family Medicine Residency Welcome

Robert Tompkins, MD Program Director
Robert Tompkins, MD Program Director

We are pleased that you are interested in learning about the University of Texas at Tyler Health Science Center, rural family medicine residency program.

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Our program was founded in 2016, with the intent of increasing access to quality healthcare in rural Northeast Texas. The residency is modeled after the first “1-2 format” rural program that began in the state of Washington in 1984. “1-2 format” programs receive unique funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services which helps foster urban hospital support for rural medical education. Our academic sponsor is the University of Texas at Tyler Health Science Center, an institution active in Graduate Medical Education since 1984. Though we have a close working relationship with the Health Science Center urban program, we are independently accredited.

Our vision is to become “The Most Sought-After Rural Family Medicine Residency in Texas.”

UT Tyler Health Science Center is a member of the UT Health East Texas integrated healthcare system. The system includes ten hospitals and 52 clinic locations within the 25,000 square mile region of Northeast Texas. Health outcomes in our region are some of the worst in the state and physician shortages exist in both family medicine and the subspecialties.

Our goal is to prepare family physicians to thrive in rural medical practice, to develop and maintain exceptional work-life balance and to improve the health of our rural populations while helping to eliminate health disparities.

The first-year curriculum is delivered in Tyler where the rural family medicine residents rotate with urban (Tyler) residents. Though most PGY1 rotations for the rural and urban residents are identical, a few specialty rotations are performed only by the rural residents. At the end of the first post-graduate year, residents move to the Pittsburg Critical Access hospital and Rural Health Clinic in Camp County where they complete rotations on the critical access campus and in nearby Mount Pleasant.

The rural residents are active in our local community and support the Pittsburg Independent School District band and sports programs with preparticipation exams and side-line sports medicine services. In addition, our residents serve as ancillary faculty for the high school teachers of Anatomy and Physiology.

The area offers affordable housing and amazing scenery. Our current chief residents share a home on the banks Lake Bob Sandlin, a mere fifteen- minute drive from the clinic. Available activities include hiking, wine tasting, fishing, hunting and camping. A wine festival is held every spring and some of the best peaches in Texas are grown within ten minutes of the clinic.

For those times when you want to enjoy urban life, downtown Dallas is one hour and fifty-one minutes from the hospital. There you can enjoy theater, concerts, shopping, fine dining as well as professional and D-1 college sports.

The community at large is supportive this program, our medical community is welcoming, and our local faculty and residents encourage interested applicants to come by for a visit.

Robert Tompkins, MD
Program Director


Virtual Tour