Rural M.D. Program Welcome

Our Mission

Welcome to the UMKC School of Medicine – St. Joseph Regional Campus.  Our mission is to train outstanding physicians to aid rural Missouri and the surrounding region, address its critical need for healthcare providers and reduce health disparities.

Curriculum and Facilities

We are a full, four-year medical school with a comprehensive curriculum. Training involves clinical exposure with physician mentors from the first semester. The St. Joseph and Kansas City campuses share the same preclinical curriculum. All small group learning, labs, workshops and hands-on clinical training is undertaken by physicians and professors on site. In the UMKC educational space at Mosaic Hospital, we have state-of-the-art personalized student spaces, classrooms, simulation labs and active learning environments that ensure students will graduate with the specialized skills and training needed to be well-prepared practitioners and effective leaders in rural healthcare. We are looking forward to moving into our new UMKC School of Medicine education building in June 2025, which will be located adjacent to the hospital and new medical office buildings.

Clerkship Opportunities and Clinical Sites

The clinical curriculum involves unique opportunities such as longitudinal integrative clerkships at rural healthcare affiliates centered on family medicine with integrated specialty clinical experiences. Other core clerkship experiences occur at Mosaic Hospital in St. Joseph. Mosaic Life Care, is an award-winning, nationally recognized 352 bed tertiary-care hospital, averaging 50,000 emergency room visits, 2,000 newborn deliveries and 400 open heart surgeries each year. Its medical staff is made up of subspecialty providers who support one of the largest rural primary care networks in the nation. Mosaic is a proud member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network. Our other major clinical sites include Mosaic Health in Maryville, Missouri, Mosaic Health in Albany, Missouri, Hedrick Medical Center in Chillicothe, Missouri, Amberwell Health in Atchison, Kansas, White Cloud Indian Services in White Cloud, Kansas and Harrison County Community Hospital in Bethany, Missouri.

Unique Opportunities

In addition to an outstanding medical courses and clerkships, the St. Joseph regional medical campus provides unique service-learning opportunities such as the Social Welfare Board, which is the oldest free and charitable clinic in the United States. Students also participate in research and quality improvement and patient safety projects at the St. Joseph campus as well as opportunities connected with research in Kansas City.

Living and Working in St. Joseph

Outside of the learning environment, we have a partnership with Missouri Western State University which is less than one mile away to utilize the gym and intramural sports. There is also a fitness facility inside Mosaic Hospital, as well as an excellent full-service cafeteria. The city of St. Joseph is Located just 50 miles north of Kansas City. It combines incredible history, architecture and arts. It is home to 14 museums including Glore Psychiatric Museum, Black Archives Museum, Native American Galleries, the Pony Express National Museum, Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, the Remington Nature Center and an upcoming Children’s Discovery Center. St. Joseph is a great place to live, learn and serve.

Michael Wacker, Ph.D.
Senior Associate Dean
St. Joseph Regional Campus