Educating Doctors for Kansas

At the KU School of Medicine-Wichita, our mission is to educate students, residents, and physicians through patient care, service, research, and scholarly activities to improve the health of Kansans in partnership with Kansas communities.

Along with educating 3rd- and 4th-year medical students as well as offering a Master of Public Health program, the Wichita campus offers continuing medical education to practicing physicians and training for resident physicians through the Wichita Center for Graduate Medical Education.

Academic & Student Affairs | Anesthesiology | Family & Community Medicine
Internal Medicine | Med/Peds | Obstetrics & Gynecology | Orthopaedics
Pathology | Pediatrics | Preventive Medicine & Public Health
Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences | Radiology
Rural Health Education & Services | Surgery

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Medical School | Residency Education | Continuing Medical Education
Master of Public Health | Pharmacy School

Medical Education

Students attend the KU School of Medicine in Kansas City for their first two years where they focus on learning the basic sciences. For their third and fourth years, about 2/3 stay in Kansas City while 1/3 come to Wichita where they learn clinical skills, spending most of their time with patients.

While the majority of medical schools are tied to a hospital, the Wichita school is unique in that it’s community based with a reputation for providing medical students with incredible hands-on learning opportunities thanks to more than 1,100 paid and volunteer faculty inside three partner hospitals (Robert J. Dole VA Medical Center, Via Christi Regional Medical Center, and Wesley Medical Center) as well as in doctors’ offices across the state.

Of the 1,608 medical students who have graduated from the Wichita school since 1975, almost half have gone on to practice in Kansas compared to a national average of 29 percent of doctors who graduate from medical school and remain in that state to practice.

With the country and Kansas in serious need of doctors, particularly primary care doctors, it’s important to note that the KU School of Medicine continues to lead the nation in medical students choosing to go into family medicine with a three-year average of more than 21 percent.

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Residency Education

Once medical students graduate as doctors, they go on to residencies. Of those who graduate from one of the 13 programs offered by the Wichita Center for Graduate Medical Education, more than 55 percent stay in Kansas to practice. Nationally, an average of 45 percent of doctors graduated from a residency in the same state.

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Continuing Medical Education

In addition to educating new doctors for Kansas, the KU School of Medicine-Wichita provides educational opportunities for practicing doctors independent of commercial interests.

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Master of Public Health

Ranked as the sixth best community health graduate degree in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, the Master of Public Health degree program at the University of Kansas has campuses in both Kansas City and Wichita. KU-MPH graduates serve in a wide variety of public health fields, including clinical medicine, research, health education, disease surveillance as well as in academic settings.