LITTLE ROCK — Stacy Zimmerman, MD, will join the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) as the Regional Centers Designated Institutional Official (DIO) overseeing physician residency and fellowship programs, effective Aug. 1.

Zimmerman will have responsibility for the accreditation of existing regional residency programs and will be responsible for oversight and growth of statewide graduate medical education (GME) efforts particularly focused in Northwest Arkansas, which are key to UAMS’ efforts to train additional, much-needed physicians for Arkansas.

Zimmerman will be key to the UAMS partnership with Washington Regional Medical Center to add a significant number of residency positions in Northwest Arkansas. Additionally, Zimmerman will play an important role in the launch of new rural training track programs in partnership with hospitals, including one planned with the Berryville and Eureka Springs communities in Northwest Arkansas. Her leadership will be critical to expanding graduate medical education in the region.

Designated Institutional Officials serve as the chief administrative overseer for sponsoring institutions of physician training programs accredited by the national Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Zimmerman will succeed Patricia Edstrom, who is retiring this summer. Zimmerman also will serve as an associate professor in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine.

“Dr. Zimmerman’s leadership experience in developing community-based residency programs will prove instrumental in building residency training opportunities in Northwest Arkansas,” said Amy Wenger, vice chancellor of the UAMS Northwest Regional Campus. “I am delighted she is joining our team.”

Zimmerman currently serves as the founding program director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program and the Transition Year Residency Program at Unity Health in Searcy, where she has practiced since 2016. She previously was in private practice for 14 years as an internist and pediatrician in Clinton, where she also served as a staff hospitalist and emergency physician for Ozark Health Medical Center. She has held adjunct faculty and preceptor positions with UAMS, the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Smith, Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, and the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine in Jonesboro.

A 1999 UAMS College of Medicine graduate, Zimmerman completed a combined residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at UAMS and Arkansas Children’s. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics.