Press Releases

Today, U.S. Representative Matt Cartwright announced that The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education received a $1,002,405 grant from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Wright Center provides medical residency training for primary care physicians in northeastern Pennsylvania and across the country through HHS’s Health Resources and Services Administration’s Teaching Health Center (THC) initiative. The THC initiative addresses physician workforce shortages—particularly in rural and inner-city areas—misdistribution of resources, and escalating health care disparities in the U.S.

“Unfortunately, too many people across northeastern Pennsylvania lack access to quality health care,” said Rep. Cartwright. “This grant will enable The Wright Center to continue training physicians so that they can provide care in these medically underserved communities.”

“HRSA’s THCGME program has proved to be an incredibly effective vehicle to address our national physician shortage, mis-distribution and related health disparities,” said Linda Thomas-Hemak, MD, The Wright Center President/CEO. “The program has successfully ignited and leveraged clinical educational environments in numerous community-based venues across America, while delivering competent, public health minded physician leaders. The practice patterns of THCGME graduates demonstrate a definite inclination to serve the most vulnerable communities and populations. The transparent financial methodologies of the program highlight educational costs and opportunities for enhancing efficiency and synergy of these resources with clinical care revenues. All of this is crucial for our larger federal conversation about transformation of the medical care delivery and educational systems. The collective genius in the THCGME story has yet to be completely illuminated and appreciated. For all these reasons, the program deserves intense, intentional and immediate attention from our federal government to discover lessons that can be linked to advancing our shared national agenda of fixing American Healthcare and improving our national health and economy.”

The Wright Center is a non-profit organization recognized by the Health Resources and Services Administration as the largest THC Graduate Medical Education consortium in the country. Physicians trained in THCs are twice as likely to practice in underserved areas as compared to those not trained in THCs.