PROGRAM GROWS — Students in emergency medicine listen to a lecture at Trinity Health System. -- Contributed

Six years in, Trinity Health System’s Graduate Medical Education program is already making a difference in the medical community.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic Trinity Health System started the area’s first Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education certified residency programs for training young physicians in the fields of internal medicine and emergency medicine.

Dr. Rick Greco, the director of medical education at Trinity Health System, said, “As part of its ongoing commitment to serving the community, Trinity Health System launched new training programs in internal medicine and emergency medicine aimed at cultivating a pipeline of high-quality physicians who will continue to meet the health care needs of our community for years to come.”

Trinity began developing its medical education programs in 2018, starting its first class in emergency medicine in 2019 and internal medicine in 2020. Greco, who ran the residency programs at OVMC in Wheeling since 1997, was recruited by Trinity in 2019 to get its medical education program up-and-running.

Faculty and staff have been key to the success of the program. That, together, with those high-quality applicants who started in the first class.

“The first class of residents were true pioneers, and true partners in developing these programs and changing the culture of the hospital from a community hospital to a teaching institution. We have been very successful, and the program continues to grow. It is incredible to think back and realize that the first three years of the programs were during the pandemic, which was a unique opportunity for residents to learn and service our community. I often reflect on how the Sisters of Sylvania established our hospital a few years before the Spanish flu hit in 1919 and their legacy,” Greco added.

“Our mission has always been centered around community care,” said Greco. “By training residents here, we are not only providing them with exceptional educational opportunities, but we are also ensuring that our community will benefit from their skills and dedication for many years to come.”

Research shows that residents in training often establish their practices close to the sites where they completed their graduate medical education. This is particularly significant for Greco, who was born and raised in Weirton.

“It’s incredibly rewarding to be part of a project that will serve the Steubenville-Weirton area and ensure that quality health care remains accessible,” Greco stated. “Trinity is committed to identifying candidates who are skilled and also a good fit for the community’s needs.”

The residency programs are three years in duration and now involve a total of 54 residents between the programs. To date, he said they’ve graduated 40 residents, 19 in internal medicine and 21 in emergency medicine.

“Our hopes are that some of them will return to our community (to practice),” he said. So far, he said seven of his graduates have decided to practice locally.

Greco pointed out that upon graduation of Trinity’s programs the graduates can enter into private practice or go on to further specialty training in fellowships. His graduates have gone on to train in a variety of fellowships such as nephrology, pulmonology, endocrinology, infectious disease, geriatrics and critical care. Emergency medicine graduates have entered fellowships in bedside ultrasound, population health and sports medicine. Greco said they hope to recruit some of them “back to the Ohio Valley to provide specialty care to our community.”

“Many residents like to train in community-based programs like Trinity because of the close relationship they can develop with their trainers with better ratio of trainers to trainees,” he said. “Many physicians want to practice in smaller communities rather than a larger inner-city environment, so they look for training programs in an area that is more like where they want to ultimately practice. I think our area sells itself. We have strong positive community values and a relatively safe area to live, with easy access to broader cultural experiences in the greater Pittsburgh area.”

Greco, a Weirton native himself, said his appreciation for community-based medicine was honed by his father, the late Dr. Ray Greco.

“My father used to say that as a physician, you can best connect with his patients when you experience life in the same community. It is best when your kids attend the same schools, your family works, shops and worships in the same community as your patients,” he said. “When you do that in your community, you get to know your patients that much better. So that is part of my drive to give back to the community that my father served and that gave him the opportunity to be a physician. I’ve tried to teach those values of connecting with the community in addition to the regular curriculum. I try to teach being a good community steward.”

To that end, he said Trinity’s residents operate a clinic where they see patients and “develop a panel of patients as if they are primary care. It helps them connect with the community.”

“In my years of living and practicing in Wheeling, I realized the impact of medical education on that community. My hope is that establishing the graduate medical education programs at Trinity will create a pipeline for physicians to train and eventually practice in the Steubenville-Weirton area for years to come.

“If they live here for three years as they train and serve the patients of the upper Ohio Valley, we’re hoping they will stay.”