Maine Med renews 10-year partnership with Tufts University School of Medicine

Photo / Tim Greenway Richard Petersen, president and CEO of Maine Medical Center. MMC and the Boston-based Tufts University School of Medicine announced Wednesday they have signed a 10-year agreement that continues their partnership to provide academic and clinical training to medical students, many of whom will go on to practice medicine in Maine.

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By Staff

Maine Medical Center and the Boston-based Tufts University School of Medicine announced Wednesday they have signed a 10-year agreement that continues their partnership to provide academic and clinical training to medical students, many of whom will go on to practice medicine in Maine.

The new agreement begins Aug. 1.

“When we began our agreement with Tufts a decade ago, we had a shared vision of addressing Maine’s physician shortage, giving Maine students equal opportunity to pursue quality medical education and developing an innovative curriculum focused on community-based education,” said Maine Medical Center President and CEO Rich Petersen. “We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, and through our expanded agreement we are looking forward to finding new and better ways of educating tomorrow’s health providers.”

How the agreement benefits Maine

More than 200 students have graduated from the Tufts-MMC Maine Track program since 2013, with roughly a quarter of those (59) pursuing residencies at Maine Medical Center and another quarter (61) at other New England hospitals.

Under the agreement, Tufts, MMC and affiliated community hospital partners provide academic and clinical training to medical students in the program. MMC and private donors also provide about $2 million in annual financial support for student scholarships, some of which are endowed.

The agreement continues what both parties described as a successful medical education partnership and allows for the future expansion of the Maine Track cohort size, which is currently capped at 40.

Additionally, the agreement increases the amount of time medical students will spend at MMC in Portland as part of their training. Previously, students spent the vast majority of the first two years in Boston and the majority of the third and fourth years at locations throughout Maine. Under the new agreement, students will spend their entire second year at Maine Medical Center.

“Our new program design will give students greater exposure to the clinical environment, make them more familiar with MMC, significantly improve their educational experience and ideally increase the number of graduates who choose to practice medicine in Maine,” said Dr. Bob Bing-You, vice president of Medical Education at MMC and interim academic dean.

The new program design, which will go into effect during the fall of 2019, comes as Tufts is revising its medical education curriculum, which will also go into effect that fall The new curriculum at Tufts emphasizes the four-year integration of basic science, clinical medicine, the science of health care delivery and personal professional development.

“The Tufts faculty at Maine Medical Center and at community hospitals throughout the state have distinguished themselves as educators, receiving accolades and awards from Tufts for their outstanding work,” said Dr. Harris A. Berman, dean of Tufts University School of Medicine. “The Maine Track partnership is providing transformative medical education that is contributing to the health of Maine’s citizens in both rural and urban settings.”

About the Maine Track program

Maine Medical Center and the Boston-based Tufts University School of Medicine say their Maine Track program is built on a simple idea: The best way to make our communities healthier is to make it easier for Mainers themselves to become doctors.

The two partners say the program provides scholarships and opportunities for academic and clinical training in Maine, which reduces two critical barriers for students who want to practice medicine throughout the state.

Dr. Bob Bing-You, vice president of Medical Education at MMC and interim academic dean,

said the program’s success has been boosted by private donors who’ve supported student scholarships, by rural hospital sites and their faculty and by Dr. Peter Bates, MMC’s recently retired senior vice president, chief academic officer and academic dean of the Maine Track program.

“The quality of the network we have created to support medical students is really reflected in the number of graduates who choose to stay in Maine and practice medicine here. I’m excited about what’s going to come over the next decade,” Bing-You said.