Primary Care Accelerated Track (PCAT)
Three hundred. That's how many more physicians North Dakota currently needs to adequately address its healthcare needs over the next decade.
If we do nothing, North Dakota will experience an even greater health provider shortage by 2030, including in the primary care specialties of family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics.
Six years of primary care training
To help alleviate this shortage, the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences is pursuing a Primary Care Accelerated Track (PCAT) for medical students. When fully implemeted, this plan will:
- Identify UND medical students interested in rural primary care.
- Create a pathway allowing them to complete medical school in three calendar years.
- Place grads in a UND-based family medicine (or, eventually, internal medicine) residency.
- Waive student tuition in exchange for five years of rural primary care practice in North Dakota after residency.
3 years: A medical student's PCAT pathway begins with three years of medical schooling both at UND and at clinical sites across North Dakota.
3 years: After graduating from a three-year medical education program, PCAT students entre a family medicine or internal medicine residency program in North Dakota.
5 years: After completing their residency, the new physicians are reimbursed their medical school tuition from UND in exchange for practicing in a rural hospital or clinic in North Dakota for a minimum of five years.
