ARLINGTON, Texas — A new era dawned at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth on March 19 as the facility participated in the Match Day for the first time in its 91-year history.

Texas Health Fort Worth

The National Resident Matching Program’s pairing of senior medical school students with training hospitals matched three soon-to-be physicians with Texas Health Fort Worth. On July 1 the trio will join four upper-level residents anticipated to also start training in the five-year General Surgery Residency Program, the hospital’s first graduate medical education (GME) program. The program will eventually have 15 residents — three in each of the five years.

“Match Day for Texas Health Fort Worth signifies the expansion and diversification in how the hospital serves our community – both as a trusted healthcare provider with long and historic community service and as an academic center of training for physicians within our region,” said hospital President Joseph DeLeon.

The competition for the three first-year residency slots was fierce, according to Therese M. Duane, M.D., MBA, CPE, FACS, FCCM, general surgeon and surgical intensivist on the Texas Health Fort Worth medical staff and the hospital’s program director for the general surgery residency.

More than 430 students applied, with 29 interviewed and placed on a rank list by the GME General Surgery Residency Selection Committee. The National Resident Matching Program applied an algorithm to match candidate preferences with the hospital rankings.

“Match Day is the culmination of all the work the students have done through medical school, and from high school in many cases. The students are finding out what their next step in life is going to be — and where they will be training,” Duane said.

Building a GME program

Texas Health Fort Worth was approved to begin a general surgery residency program by The Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education in August 2020. The accreditation launched Texas Health’s plan to increase its GME commitments to help address the shortage of physicians in the Metroplex and increase access to convenient care for North Texans, said Andrew Masica, M.D., MSCI, Texas Health’s senior vice president and chief medical officer, Reliable Health. 

“These programs create a long-term benefit for the community and support our mission to improve the health of the consumers we serve,” Masica said. “Training the next generation of caregivers helps ensure that the future of that mission is in good hands.”

The current plan is for the new residency programs to be based at four campuses — Texas Health Fort Worth, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano, and a combined program at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Denton and Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford. The new programs are projected to add up to 300 residency positions within Texas Health by 2023.

In addition to general surgery, Texas Health’s GME programs will train physicians in primary care specialties such as internal medicine, family medicine, and obstetrics and gynecology. Future programs in the planning stages include psychiatry, emergency medicine, and physical medicine and rehabilitation.

The new work complements the longstanding internal medicine residency program at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, which receives 12 new residents annually.

Texas Health Fort Worth’s first residents

The seven residents in Texas Health Fort Worth’s 2021-2022 General Surgery Residency Program, with postgraduate year (PGY) in the five-year program and medical school attended:

PGY 4:

• Ashley Holly, M.D., Creighton University School of Medicine

PGY 3:

• Paul Aifesehi, M.D., M.P.H., University of Benin School of Medicine, Nigeria
• Jennifer Schneider, M.D., M.P.H., St. George’s University School of Medicine, Grenada

PGY 2:

• Ashley Alexander, M.D., University of Alabama School of Medicine

  PGY 1:

• Alexandra Green, D.O., University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine
• Jonathan Turner Hughes, D.O., M.P.H., University of North Texas Health Science Center College of Osteopathic Medicine
• Nicholas Kinder, D.O., Kansas City University of Medicine & Biosciences College of Osteopathic Medicine