Pullman Regional Hospital applied to start the Palouse’s first medical residency program in hopes of bringing more family physicians to the area.

The long-term goal would be for graduates of the program to stay in the area and continue working with their patients, hospital CEO Scott Adams said.

The program would allow residents to see and treat patients on a regular basis, Adams said. The benefit is improving access to primary care for the community with more family physicians.

The residency program is a collaboration between Pullman Regional Hospital and Spokane Teaching Health Center, Adams said. Residents would complete a three-year training process, starting with the first year in Spokane. They would spend the second and third years at Pullman Regional Hospital, where they would learn from family physicians whose patients vary in age.

Family physicians are trained in a range of medical practices, according to American Academy of Family Physicians’ website. These include labor and delivery, emergency medicine, surgery and procedures, pediatrics, hospital medicine and geriatrics.

There are more than 470 family medicine residency programs in the U.S., the website states.

The residency program would involve external support and sponsorships, and must meet the requirements of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Adams said. The first set of residents would begin in Spokane this fall if the council approves the program.

The hospital has been working toward developing a family medicine-oriented residency program for the past six years, Adams said.

The program would be open for medical graduates nationwide to apply, he said. Finalists would go through an interview process before being selected for the program, and four new residents would be selected each year.

The council will tell the hospital whether its application was approved in April.