Disagree, I don't think texas needs another med school. Sure there are lots of residency spots in rural IM and FM that are undesirable to the majority of med students. I have a strong feeling that students at a UT med school will be applying for surgical subspecialties, academic IM, derm, rads, etc, and those fields are plenty competitive. Add on the fact that roughly half of texas med students do residency out of state (as there is not a lot of those programs I mentioned established in state), it is a waste of tax payers money to open this school. Also Texas has what 14 med schools?
Of course a graduate from a Texas medical school is free to practice anywhere they choose and do residency in other states. Texas still has fewer doctors per capita than needed in many areas, and recruiting with a regional mission is an attempt at addressing this issue.
Opening a new med school to make it 15 schools in texas will not magically fill this gap. Most (if not all) grads will end up practicing in desirable cities in desirable fields either in the megacenters of texas (austin dallas and houston) or out of state. Thats just reality. Just look at UTRGV match list for comparison. Texas needs more desirable residencies if they want to keep doctors in state, not a new school making 15 med schools in texas. If 14 med schools in the state is not enough to fill the need, then that should tell us that the problem will not be addressed by making it 15.
