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Donors Invest in the Physician Workforce Through Training
It’s an acronym that will help determine the future of health care in America. GME, short for graduate medical education, is the requisite clinical education that follows on the heels of medical school graduation. It begins with a young doctor’s hospital residency to train in a specialty practice area, such as internal medicine, and may include an ensuing fellowship in a subspecialty, such as gastroenterology. And it is in jeopardy.
According to projections by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the U.S. will face a physician shortage of up to 86,000 by 2036. While the root causes are many, the AAMC points to the need for expanded investment in the training of new doctors, particularly by increasing the number of residency positions available to medical school graduates nationwide. But GME programs are notoriously complex to administer — and competitive to enter.
Academic medical centers train the next generation and serve as major research hubs, pioneering new standards of care
“It’s not unusual for there to be more than 2,000 applicants for fewer than 20 spots in a residency program,” explains Trevor M. Burt, EdD, chief education officer at the Houston Methodist Academic Institute. “Teaching hospitals like Houston Methodist, also known as academic medical centers, invest years in accreditation applications and development of infrastructure and programming to host both GME programs and the medical student clinical rotations that precede them.”
While it’s true that academic medical centers train the next generation of physicians and medical scientists, they also serve as major research hubs, pioneering new standards of care in medicine. Comprising only about 5% of our nation’s hospitals, these institutions operate more than 70% of accredited Level I trauma centers and virtually all U.S. comprehensive cancer centers.* Perhaps most important to patients, though, they bring to outlying communities a level of complex care often not available otherwise, providing the most advanced technology and around-the-clock medical experts in every specialty while also boosting the economic health of communities.
gifts help bright minds shine
Teaching hospitals like Houston Methodist invest years in building out rigorous medical education programs to support talented emerging physicians
When Dr. Joe and Linda Fowler heard that Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital would be the system’s first network campus to host Texas A&M College of Medicine student rotations in 2020, the avid Texas A&M University fans took note. In 2024, the couple made a generous gift to the hospital’s Medical Training and Education Fund to enhance the opportunities available to the students. Whether for next-generation simulation facilities, the latest training equipment or exposure to research that pushes curious minds to new levels of problem-solving, the Fowlers say they hope to help fuel the career growth and promise of countless new physicians.
Next in planning for Houston Methodist leadership was to bring a full-scale, independent GME program into the broader Houston community. In 2024, Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital launched just such a program — starting with an internal medicine residency.
Academic medical programs bring highly skilled care to THE
67%+
OF Houstonians wHO LIVE OUTSIDE CITY LIMITS
HOUSTON METHODIST HOSPITAL ranks in the top 10 Major Teaching Hospitals in the U.S.
(Fortune, 2025)
Most GME programs last
3–7 years,
depending on the specialty
In Fort Bend County, Brij and Sunita Agrawal share the Fowlers’ enthusiasm for emboldening young minds. Following news that Houston Methodist Willowbrook would introduce its own GME program in 2025, they learned that nearby Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital would also soon press go as a training site for residency and fellowship programs. The Agrawals made the call to help lay the cornerstone. Their recent gift not only created an Excellence Fund endowment for the facility but also established a Graduate Medical Education Fund to provide seed money to support family medicine residents and sports medicine fellows in 2026.
Thanks to its longtime academic partnerships with Weill Cornell Medical College and Texas A&M’s College of Medicine and School of Engineering Medicine, Houston Methodist has hosted thriving academic training programs at its flagship Texas Medical Center campus since 2005. Today, bringing top-tier medical education and training to Houston Methodist hospitals throughout the Greater Houston area boosts the number of programs available to talented emerging physicians while also bringing highly skilled care to many of the more than 67% of Houston’s residents living outside city limits.
*Association of American Medical Colleges