The Toledo medical community got a boost recently when Mercy Health-Toledo announced that it will begin a new pediatric residency program this July.

That is great news, and it softens the blow from ProMedica’s decision to bring to an end its family-medicine residency program at Toledo Hospital.

The Toledo area, along with the entire nation, is facing an impending shortage of primary-care and pediatric physicians. The positive byproduct of residency programs for communities is that those newly trained doctors more often than not stay in the area. 

The Mercy program will grow to 12 residents by 2019. The hospital system also offers 11 other residency and fellowship programs, totaling 180 residents. 

St. Luke’s Hospital President Dan Wakeman said he foresees beginning a residency program within the next two years. His hospital had a family-medicine residency program from 2007-2014, when it was part of ProMedica. The Federal Trade Commission ordered the hospitals to separate beginning in 2015. St. Luke’s has been fully independent since July. 

Family-medicine doctors, in particular, are in short supply. Many medical students, facing growing loads of debt, are opting for more lucrative specialties than family medicine, making it extremely difficult to replace an aging medical force.

“We see a significant need for residency education in this market, and it’s in primary care. We’re big believers that the primary-care physician is the conductor of the orchestra,” Mr. Wakeman said.

ProMedica began a family-medicine residency at its Monroe Regional Hospital in 2013. The program now has 18 residents. But the health system’s phasing out of its Toledo Hospital program, which has been in existence since 1974, was a shock and a disappointment to many.

Toledoans have always taken pride in the city’s medical education programs and hospitals, in general. But this will provide an opportunity for other hospital systems to step in and fill the void, something which Mercy Health has done and which St. Luke’s will soon be doing.

First Published February 19, 2017, 5:00 a.m.