Last-ditch efforts to rescue the Wichita Falls Family Medicine Residency Program had not panned out by late Friday afternoon.

Action at a meeting 6 p.m. Monday evening is expected to seal the fate of the 40-year-old program, officials said.

Even with sad news likely coming their way, faculty and residents had to shrug off uncertainty to provide medical care to the up to 8,000 patients served by the program.

Dr. Arthur Szczerba, interim program director, took a few moments from a busy Thursday at the Wichita Falls Family Health Center to express disappointment – and hope things might still turn around.

“Anything is possible,” Szczerba said. “This program needs to continue. There’s tremendous need. ... We’re not bringing any burden to our community. We’re bringing only solutions.”

The program’s Graduate Medical Education Committee is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Monday at the Family Health Center.

The committee is expected to act to officially close the program, effective at least by Aug. 31. If so, residents will disperse by July 1 when the new academic year begins.

Among last-ditch efforts Friday was a request from North Central Texas Medical Foundation officials to meet with the United Regional Health Care System Board at noon Monday, officials said.

The request from the residency program’s sponsor to the URHCS Board had not met with success by late Friday afternoon.

A Change.org petition with more than 2,310 signatures apparently has not swayed URHCS officials.

Wichitan Staci Koetter started the petition to URHCS President Phyllis Cowling and the hospital system’s board to save the residency program.

The program’s shutdown will leave up to 8,000 patients, many of whom are poor, searching for new medical care.

Dr. Jonathan Williams, associate program director, and patients have spoken out, fearing the closure will leave patients out in the cold and result in unnecessary deaths.

Others – such as Cowling and Community Healthcare Center Chief Executive Officer Allen Patterson – contend the medical community will fill in the gaps left by the program’s shutdown.

Cowling has said URHCS needs to focus time, energy and resources elsewhere although the hospital system’s costs will be a bit higher without the residency program.

Patterson has said CHC needed $500,000 more a year and more control of the program to continue management services for the program.

Mutual agreement between the CHC and the residency program to part ways left an opening for United Regional to also cut ties with the program. Without a teaching hospital, the program is doomed.

Szczerba said he had been worried the program might face closure.

“It’s just sad we are kept in this limbo,” he said. “I cannot proceed with transfer of the residents because all is in limbo.”

The limbo ends if the committee votes Monday to close the program.

The shutdown disrupts the education of 16 current residents in Wichita Falls and scuttles the plans of eight incoming residents to begin training in family medicine here this summer.

Officials associated with the residency are frantically scrambling to help residents find new placements and to prepare to close the program correctly.

“Do we think closing the residency is an error? Yes,” Dr. David Whittiker, president of the North Central Texas Medical Foundation Board, said. “Do we wish it had turned out differently? Of course.

“But our task now is to finish out the academic year and to make sure our residents are taken care of,” Whittiker said.

He said program affiliates at the University of North Texas Health Science Center are doing a great job helping residents find new jobs. In addition, URHCS is helping defray costs for transitioning residents.