First-year medical student Johnson Phung, 22, aspires to be an internal medicine physician. Akanee Angel, 23, also a first-year medical student, wants to practice family medicine. Both want to stay in Tennessee after they graduate.
Phung and Angel are students in the College of Medicine’s accelerated Three-Year MD Program. Launched in 2021, the program allows highly motivated students committed to practicing in certain fields to complete medical school more rapidly and with reduced cost.
It is available to students who know they want to enter the fields of Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Medicine-Pediatrics, Pediatrics, Neurology, Pediatric Neurology, and Psychiatry. Participants have a direct pathway to one of these residency programs in the UT Health Sciences system upon graduation from medical school.
“I came into medical school for sure knowing I wanted to do two things,” Angel said. “One was to be a family medicine doctor. I had a whole year of working as a medical assistant in a family medicine clinic, and I knew that it was right for me. I knew that I loved it so much and I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.”
“And the other thing I wanted to do was work in Tennessee and stay close to family, stay close to home, and kind of give back to all of these communities that have helped shape me,” Angel, who is from Clarksville, added. “The three-year program, I thought, was a great opportunity to do both of these things and faster than a traditional medical student.”
The accelerated program is special for many reasons, said Catherine Womack, MD, the associate dean of Student Affairs and Admissions at the College of Medicine.
“It is wonderful if students accepted to medical school here know the primary care specialty they are interested in applying to, because they are able to save a year of medical school tuition,” she said. “We need more practicing physicians, as we have a physician shortage, which will only continue to worsen as our population ages. Graduating our students early helps UT Health Sciences increase the number of graduates, helps the student with their debt, and helps our residency programs match excellent students who they know well, as they have mentored and taught them over the three-year program.”
Phung, who is from Lebanon, Tennessee, and Angel graduated from Belmont University and are a couple. “We met during undergrad and are now pursuing our dreams of medicine together at UT Health Sciences,” he said.
In addition to being certain about his future goals, Phung had specific ideas about the institution that would help him achieve them.
“When I was applying to schools, I wanted to make sure I applied to a school that was very collaborative,” he said. “I toured UT Health Sciences twice upon getting accepted and just the environment and the collaboration between the students was probably my favorite thing. Everyone just seemed so ready to support each other instead of competing against one another.
“And then, I also know that I have career goals of staying in Tennessee and practicing in Tennessee,” he said. “I consider Tennessee to be my home state, so it just made a lot of sense to me to train where I was going to eventually practice. And the three-year program allows me to. First, it’s shorter, so it’s one less year I’m in school, and that’s a year sooner I could get to see patients. Because there’s a conditional match, I get to pour my efforts into things that I want to pour into instead of trying to fill out an application (for residency) or do something just to make sure my application looks good. I get to be a little more particular with my time and point to things I really care about.”
Students in the three-year curriculum achieve the same program objectives and curricular goals as those in the traditional four-year curriculum. The timeline; however, is condensed.
“I feel like it’s my turn to serve the people of Tennessee.”
Alex Wood, medical student in the accelerated program
“Because you know what you’re going to want to do, they’re going to give you fewer optional rotations and less elective time,” Phung said. “So, you lose some of your fourth year, and then you also lose, I think, all your summers. Your summers are cut down from two months to two weeks.”
Accelerated programs are increasing at medical schools across the country, said Tina Mullick, MD, an associate professor and the assistant clinical dean for the Three-Year MD Program at UT Health Sciences.
“In terms of national data, we know that people who are in three-year programs compared to a traditional four-year cohort are equally successful, have equivalent board pass rates, and they do great as physicians,” she said. “And actually, there’s even some data saying they may even be slightly superior in terms of their higher rates of chief residents, for example, amongst the three-year cohorts compared to the four-year cohorts.”
The program has already produced two graduating classes. It began in Memphis, but has expanded to the college’s campuses in Jackson, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Nashville.
“Probably the biggest thing that I would say for our students and for applicants about this program at an institutional level is that it’s great because hopefully we’re attracting really high-caliber applicants and hopefully we’re keeping these people on as physicians, for certain through residency, but then keeping them beyond as our faculty and as our fellows and as our community physicians,” Dr. Mullick said.
Alex Wood, 22, is from Lexington, Tennessee, and wants to be a pediatrician and practice in West Tennessee as close to her hometown as possible. “Honestly, there is need in all of West Tennessee,” she said.
“Just growing up here, the communities here have always served me. I’m where I am because of the state of Tennessee, and just the kindness of people in my hometown,” said Wood, a UT Knoxville graduate and HOPE and Volunteer Scholarship recipient. “And so now, I feel like it’s my turn to serve the people of Tennessee back. I just feel like that’s what I was born to do, be a Volunteer.”
This story appeared first in the 2026 Winter issue of Medicine Magazine.