UMMC expands Oxford health programs to meet Mississippi workforce demand
UMMC will add 35 Oxford physical therapy seats in 2028 as nursing enrollment nears 200, aiming to ease Mississippi’s shortage and keep care closer to home.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center is adding a Doctor of Physical Therapy track in Oxford and pushing its nursing footprint toward 200 students, a move aimed at training more health workers for North Mississippi and the rest of the state. The changes are designed to send more nurses and physical therapists into a system where clinics, hospitals and patients continue to feel the strain of workforce shortages.
UMMC said the School of Health Related Professions will begin offering the DPT program in Oxford in May 2028, with applications opening in summer 2027. The Oxford cohort will have 35 slots, while the Jackson campus will continue to offer 50. UMMC said the expansion is meant to help meet high demand for licensed physical therapists statewide.
Dr. Jacob Daniels, an associate professor and 2016 alumnus of the program, will lead the Oxford PT site. UMMC’s DPT program awarded 49 degrees at spring 2026 commencement and has maintained a nearly 95% graduation rate over the past two years, figures the university is using to show the program can grow without losing its completion record.
The nursing expansion in Oxford is already further along. UMMC said its Traditional BSN program launched there in summer 2024 and welcomed a second cohort in summer 2025. Enrollment across the Oxford site’s Traditional and Accelerated BSN programs is approaching 200 students, giving Lafayette County a larger pipeline of future nurses educated closer to where many of them may work.
That Oxford nursing push was backed by state and grant money. In 2023, UMMC received a $750,000 AccelerateMS grant through the Mississippi Office of Workforce Development and a $4 million appropriation from the Mississippi Legislature for repair, renovation and expansion in Oxford. The work was completed at the South Oxford Center, the former Baptist Memorial Hospital building the University of Mississippi bought in 2017 and later converted from hospital space into simulation and skills labs.
UMMC leaders have said the Oxford growth is part of a broader effort to strengthen Mississippi’s health workforce and keep more graduates in North Mississippi communities. Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UMMC vice chancellor for health affairs, said expanding opportunities for physical therapy students strengthens the program on both campuses, while Noel Wilkin, the University of Mississippi provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the changes create meaningful opportunities in high-demand professions and broaden access to skilled care across the state.
The School of Nursing’s Oxford presence also carries local history. It first opened in Oxford in 1948, became a school in 1958 and moved to Jackson in 1956, where it launched Mississippi’s first baccalaureate nursing program. UMMC now says the Oxford site offers both Accelerated BSN and Traditional BSN options, tying the program’s past to a workforce strategy built around Lafayette County and the region around it.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
