Texas Rehabilitation Hospital website
Texas Rehabilitation Hospital of Fort Worth, a joint venture of Kindred Rehabilitation Services and Texas Health Resources, will begin offering a residency program for prospective physical medicine rehabilitation physicians, or physiatrists, in 2023.
The hospital’s residency program received accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in October of 2021 fand is currently in development.
The program will be the first of its kind located at a Kindred Rehabilitation Services-affiliated hospital and will help in building a pipeline of PM&R physicians, who often serve as medical directors responsible for leading the interdisciplinary care teams who guide patients through their recovery.
Physiatrists are in demand in part because of the aging population and growing need for inpatient rehabilitation services. The supply of physiatrists, however, is somewhat limited by the fact that medical school applicants for residency programs currently outpace positions available at settings such as Texas Rehabilitation Hospital, according to a news release.
“This is an exciting development for Kindred Rehabilitation Services and Fort Worth, and an innovative solution to an industrywide challenge of growing the available pool of physiatrists in acute rehab to be medical directors and to practice in rehabilitation hospitals,” says Russ Bailey, president of Kindred Rehabilitation Services, in a statement. “This program will not only help mold and train PM&R physicians, but the experience gained by integrating an academic program into one of our hospitals will be invaluable to all of our inpatient rehabilitation hospitals.”
Kindred Rehabilitation Services, a business unit of LifePoint Health, currently operates 29 inpatient rehabilitation facilities across 17 states. It selected the Fort Worth hospital after working with a consultant to review the markets in which it operates and assess the residency programs available. There are no PMR residency programs currently in practice in Fort Worth.
“The growth of our physician pipeline in Fort Worth benefits the entire region,” says Joseph DeLeon, president, Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital of Fort Worth and current board chair of Texas Rehabilitation Hospital of Fort Worth. “Statistics show that physicians will stay where they do their residency. This is a crucial step toward filling the pipeline of physicians who will care for aging North Texans.”
In December, Scott Stoll was hired as the program’s director. Stoll brings clinical, academic, and administrative expertise from his more than 25 years of teaching, research, and medical practice in the Fort Worth area.
“This program will create an outstanding environment for training and developing tomorrow’s physiatrists,” says Stoll. “As our nation ages and the need for inpatient rehabilitation services grows, so does the need for high quality PM&R physicians.”
Candidates interested in being part of the program team — as well as institutions interested in partnering with the residency program — are invited to contact the hospital for more information.
Texas Rehabilitation Hospital of Fort Worth is a freestanding rehabilitation hospital in Fort Worth that cares for adults recovering from conditions such as stroke, neurological disease, injury to the brain or spinal cord, and other long-term illnesses or injuries.