The McLeod Family Medicine Residency Program recently welcomed nine new residents to its program.

The new McLeod Residents for the Class of 2020 include: Dr. Thomas Drzymala, Jr., Dr. Rachel Fenters, Dr. Nicole Joyner-Powell, Dr. Daniel McCorry, Dr. Brandon McDonald, Dr. Jonathan Orton, Dr. Rhonda Wallace, Dr. Evan Welker and Dr. Akal Zeleke.

The residency program is designed to train physicians in an effort to increase the availability of family medicine physicians for patients in the 15-county region McLeod Health serves. After graduating from medical school, physicians who join McLeod for their residency receive a rigorous three years of training to prepare for their own future practice. Since its inception in 1980, there have been 233 graduates of the McLeod Family Medicine Residency Program. In addition, 40 percent of these graduates have remained in the region helping to offset the shortage of primary care physicians available.