The University of Arizona and Gila River Health Care are launching a first-of-its-kind medical school branch in Sacaton, designed to meet the needs of rural and Indigenous communities.
Starting in July 2027, a 10-person class will be admitted to the accelerated primary care program. Students will spend the first leg of the three-year program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix, followed by 18 months of clinical education, during which they will work alongside physicians in the Gila River Indian Community.
“I truly believe this is among the most consequential initiatives that we’re undertaking at the U of A, or will during my tenure,” UA President Suresh Garimella said.
Arizona currently ranks 42nd in the country in access
to primary care, with rural and Indigenous Arizonans facing the brunt of the impact.
The new medical school branch, which is already accepting applications, is inspired by a similar partnership launched in Yuma last year. UA opened the state’s first rural medical school branch alongside Onvida Health, with hopes of bolstering Arizona’s health care workforce. Several local leaders in Yuma worked to provide accessible housing and other amenities to encourage new medical students to continue to work and live in the western Arizona city.
Leaders expect the new medical school branch to similarly encourage medical students to become immersed in communities within the Gila River Indian Community. Gila River Health Care, the Gila River Indian Community's tribally operated health care system, has already pledged $25 million through 2034 to support the new branch. That will help pay for faculty positions, scholarships and additional infrastructure.
There are no penalties if a student receives a scholarship to attend the program and transitions out, said Dr. Fredric Wondisford, dean of the UA College of Medicine in Phoenix. UA leaders said they did not want to coerce any students to stay in the program if they would otherwise feel that it’s not the right fit.
“It’s very difficult to de novo recruit people to rural areas that haven’t had that experience,” Wondisford said, noting that students completing the program will be far more likely to choose a rural location later in life after studying in those environments.
Existing medical students will also have the opportunity to opt into the program later if they meet the criteria.
New program will prioritize community, culture
Medical leaders said students will be immersed in a curriculum that combines the cultural context of serving Indigenous communities with the rigor of medical education through UA.
Robert Pablo, chair of the board of Gila River Health Care, said students will learn how to gain the trust of community members first.
“They’re going to realize that things may go at a slower pace, that building relationships is going to be key,” Pablo said.
Further down the line, Pablo said the existence of the new medical branch could also inspire children growing up in the Gila River Indian Community to become doctors.
“By having a school in their own community, this will give a chance for some of our own children to be competitive for the rest of their lives,” Pablo said.
Oklahoma State University has the first medical campus co-located in a tribal community. Oklahoma State, in partnership with the Cherokee Nation, runs an osteopathic medical school. What the University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix is doing is significant for having formal allopathic medical training in a reservation community, said Dr. Donald Warne, co-director at the Center for Indigenous Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Allopathic and osteopathic medical schools both graduate physicians, usually in a four-year program, and they attend the same residencies and fellowships, prescribe medicine and can perform surgery. The main difference is that osteopathic training has a whole-body approach that includes hands-on techniques to sense, correct and diagnose illnesses and injuries in the body.
"When people ask how many medical schools are located on Indigenous land, we like to say every single one," Warne said. "These are in tribal reservation communities that are sovereign nations within the nation. ... In states with large populations of American Indians, we need these relationships and it's a wonderful outcome."
Training medical students in Indigenous communities allows for culturally sensitive training, which is a key in helping to narrow some of the disparities that Indigenous Americans continue to experience, including a lower life expectancy than the general population, Warne said.
"There's so much of a cultural aspect to medical care. If we're not putting cultural care and diversity into medical education, we're doing a disservice to the population," he said.
Anything that expands medical education to tribal nations is positive, especially if it encourages young Indigenous people to become physicians, Warne said, citing data from the Association of American Medical Colleges that shows 0.3% of physicians are indigenous, even though indigenous people comprise 3% of the U.S. population.
Not a single U.S. medical school dean is Indigenous, he said.
"We're not underrepresented, we're unrepresented," he said. "We still have a long way to go in equity in medical education and the number of physicians."
Warne said there's another project in the works to create an independent Indigenous school of medicine in South Dakota that's governed by Indigenous people, and not by a state government board of regents.
Helen Rummel covers higher education for The Arizona Republic. Reach her at hrummel@azcentral.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter:@helenrummel.
Reach health-care reporter Stephanie Innes at stephanie.innes@usatodayco.com or follow her on X: @stephanieinnes or on Bluesky: @stephanieinnes.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: UA launches new medical school branch in Gila River Indian Community
