The University of Arizona will offer a three-year medical degree to get new doctors into the workforce faster due to the need for more primary care physicians.
The program, to be offered at UA’s two separately accredited medical schools in Tucson and Phoenix, was approved last week by the Arizona Board of Regents.
The new three-year program will allow graduating physicians from UA’s College of Medicine-Tucson and College of Medicine-Phoenix to enter the workforce one year faster than those in the traditional four-year program.
Benefits of the accelerated program include decreased student debt and an increased number of primary care physicians in the Arizona workforce, UA said in a news release.
Arizona meets only about 40% of its needs for primary care physicians and requires 558 more primary care physicians to meet its current need, according to an Arizona Health Workforce report in December 2024. The report also states the state needs 1,941 primary care doctors by 2030 to keep up with its growing population.
The new programs, along with new degrees in physician assistant, physical therapy, midwifery and more, are part of the UA’s initiative to develop the health-care workforce.
The two programs will have their first cohorts of students starting this fall. They hope to enroll a combined 36 medical students in the next three years, the UA said.
While 30 universities in the U.S. offer three-year medical programs, the UA says it will be the first to offer it in Arizona.
The plan “will allow us to leverage the strength of the University of Arizona’s two medical schools to improve access to health care for all Arizonans,” Patricia Prelock, UA’s provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, said in the news release. “We are committed to reducing the state’s primary care physician shortage.”
The two accelerated programs will join the UA’s Primary Care Scholarship Program, established by the Arizona Legislature in 2019 to help address an urgent need for more physicians. The scholarship provides in-state equivalent tuition for medical education to students who are willing to practice primary care in a rural or urban, underserved Arizona community.
UA says students in the three-year program will complete the same required courseloads and clerkships as those in the four-year program. The three-year program, however, will eliminate some elective clinical curriculum and transition-to-residency credits, which are generally completed in the fourth year, the UA news release says.
The programs were approved by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the recognized accrediting body for medical education programs leading to a doctor of medicine (MD) degree in the U.S. and Canada, it says.
Graduates are shown at the University of Arizona College of Medicine's 50th commencement ceremony in 2021.
