LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – A significant milestone for the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV.
Many of the students from the school’s first graduating class known as the charter class are now finishing their residency training programs. A handful of them have decided to stay in Las Vegas including Dr. Ashley Prandecki, who grew up in the valley.
“It is really neat that I was a part of the charter class, and now being able to see how the school is growing, how many classes have come after me,” she said.
Dr. Prandecki is finishing up her three-year residency training at UNLV and is now the Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at the medical school.
“It is my introduction to academic medicine, so I am still the attending physician on the inpatient and outpatient setting, but I also manage resident schedules, I teach a lot in terms of lectures,” she added.
Nevada needs more than 1,500 primary care doctors to meet the national average, according to the American Medical Association. Some of the reasons for the shortage include a lack of residency spots which are federally funded.
“It seems more attractive to go to places maybe with more resources, maybe larger academic centers, so I can see the excitement to want to go somewhere else, so it does make it difficult sometimes to retain people,” Dr. Prandecki added.
But says the program is headed in the right direction.
“Once you are here and you realize you have such a wonderful patient population, wonderful faculty, who train all over the country and the world, it is actually a wonderful place to stay,” she said.
UNLV’s medical school has hired an additional 70 staff and is working to increase its class size from 60-80 students.
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