One Medical School. Two Campuses. More Physicians.
The United States is in a shortage of practicing physicians and is expected to have this shortage rise in the coming years. The state of Missouri is among the states with a severe shortage of rural physicians with 90 percent of Missouri counties not having enough doctors.
In an initiative to train more physicians for Missouri, the MU School of Medicine opened a second clinical campus in Springfield in 2016 and the Patient-Centered Care Learning Center in Columbia in 2017. Through these additions, the University of Missouri expanded its medical school class to provide more than 300 additional physicians for Missouri. The presence of the clinical campus in Springfield also opens the door for the creation of additional community-based residency programs in Southwest Missouri and other regions in Missouri.
Clinical Campuses Curriculum & Assignment Process
The University of Missouri, School of Medicine offers two clerkship campuses for clinical level training, one in Columbia, Missouri and one in Springfield, Missouri. Up to 128 students will be admitted each fall with up to 25% of the total class being assigned to the Springfield campus, and the remaining students being assigned to the Columbia campus for their third and fourth years. All medical students will be in Columbia for their first and second years during their preclerkship curriculum.
All admitted Mizzou Med students will be assigned a clinical campus location before the start of their M1 year. This process typically takes place in July prior to matriculation through a lottery process which takes admitted students' campus preferences into consideration. It is important for all potential students to know that they could be located in either Columbia OR Springfield for their last two years of medical school. More information about the clinical campus assignment process will be discussed during the admissions interview, and upon acceptance.
The office of Admissions manages the clinical campus assignment process for all incoming medical students. With questions regarding the clinical campus assignment process please reach out to admissions at mizzoumed@missouri.edu.
Springfield Clinical Campus
The Springfield Clinical Campus is a public/private partnership with CoxHealth and Mercy hospitals – doctors to provide patient-centered care for the people of the state and beyond. The Springfield Clinical Campus opened in 2016 and has over 350 physicians serving as MU faculty members encompassing nearly every specialty and serves as the training ground for up to 28 students per class.
The MU School of Medicine model explicitly focuses students’ attention on the people they are preparing to serve, and students’ clinically-based education will draw on the patient-centered care provided by CoxHealth, Mercy and University of Missouri Health Care. MU’s unique partnership will serve as a model for other areas of the state — and nation — that face shortages of health care professionals.
Find details about our community-based education
Columbia Clinical Campus
The Columbia Clinical Campus entails clinical years through University Hospital, Women’s Hospital, Children's Hospital and with a partnership through the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital. With the MU-SOM expansion to Springfield, a portion of each medical school class will have their clinical years in southwest Missouri, while the majority of the class remains in Columbia.
MU School of Medicine has continuously addressed Missouri’s critical physician shortage with its Rural Scholars Program and Rural Residency Program. Thirty-seven percent of Missourians live in rural communities, but only 18 percent of Missouri physicians practice there.
