Anthem Gives $2 Million to UNLV's Medical School as Nevada Ranks 49th for Rheumatologists

by Ryan Rose

What Happened

UNLV announced the gift on Nov. 4, 2026. It comes from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield's Nevada Medicaid business and creates what the school calls the Anthem Fellowship Endowment.

Two words in that name need a quick explanation:

Fellowship: This is advanced training after medical school and residency. FOX5 reports that fellows are already medical doctors who have finished a residency. They learn a specialty while working next to experienced physicians.
Endowment: UNLV explains that an endowment invests the original gift and spends the yearly payout on a set purpose. The $2 million itself stays invested, so the money can keep working long after this year.

Dr. Alison Netski leads the medical school. FOX5 calls her the dean, and News 3 lists her as interim dean. She told FOX5 the money will "fund a fellowship position every year in perpetuity." In plain English, that means one spot, paid for, for as long as the school exists.

Here is an important detail that is easy to miss. This gift does not start a new program. UNLV's rheumatology fellowship began in 2024, and UNLV says the endowment will sustain training already underway. The program admits two new fellows each year and lasts two years. So the fund supports one fellowship position inside a program that already exists. UNLV Health plans to recruit a new fellow as each one graduates.

Some details were not in the reports we reviewed. The yearly payout from the fund and the full cost of training one fellow are both NOT FOUND. We also could not find whether the gift adds to the number of fellows the program can take over time.

Joy Thomas leads Anthem's government business in Nevada. In UNLV's announcement, she said the partnership will help develop the next generation of specialists. UNLV says the gift grew out of a working relationship between Anthem and UNLV Health.

A doctor in a white coat checks a patient's blood pressure across a desk during an office visit

Why It Matters to Las Vegas Residents

Rheumatologists diagnose and manage diseases of the joints and the immune system. Many of their patients need care for years, sometimes for life. They also take time. Joann Strobbe, the CEO of UNLV Health, told FOX5 that getting to a diagnosis can be hard and takes a lot of time with a doctor. That makes appointments even tougher to come by.

The numbers give you a sense of the gap:

One for every 125,000 people: UNLV Health's figure for Nevada, as reported by FOX5, which ranks the state 49th.
Six months or longer: How long Nevada patients often wait for an appointment, according to UNLV.
44.4 percent by 2037: The share of projected need that Nevada's full-time rheumatologists would meet, according to a study in the journal Arthritis Care & Research. Healio reports that only Idaho and West Virginia came in lower.

The same study found the problem gets much worse outside of big cities. Metro areas were projected to meet 97.3 percent of need, and rural areas just 18.5 percent. Las Vegas is a metro area, but Nevada as a whole still landed near the bottom of the list.

Counts of these doctors vary by source and by year. In early 2024, UNLV reported 29 rheumatologists serving more than 2.3 million people in Clark County. In 2025, UNLV cited a national report listing 36 practicing rheumatologists in all of Nevada. We could not find how UNLV Health built its 125,000 figure. Every version of the number points the same way, though. There are not many of these doctors here.

Think about what a six month wait looks like in real life. A parent with swollen, painful hands may struggle to get through a work shift. Someone with a lupus flare may bounce between urgent care and a primary care office while the calendar crawls. Some estimates put the number of Nevadans living with lupus at about 13,000, according to UNLV.

Fellows can help shorten that line even while they are still training. Strobbe told FOX5 that working alongside experienced physicians lets the practice see more patients. Dr. Kate Martin, the school's senior associate dean for graduate medical education, said residents and fellows begin treating patients on their first day, with faculty supervising. So the benefit does not wait until graduation.

This is also a piece of a bigger problem. A 2025 report from the Nevada Health Workforce Research Center at the University of Nevada, Reno found that Nevada would need 2,303 more physicians just to reach the national average. Nevada trails the national per capita rate in 35 of the 37 specialty areas the report tracks. If you have ever waited a long time for a specialist in Las Vegas, those numbers explain why.

The same report does show progress. Licensed physicians in Nevada grew from 192.3 to 230.0 per 100,000 people over the past decade. Clark County is where most of the state's doctors work, with 5,167 of the 7,183 actively practicing physicians the report counted. So the state is gaining doctors. It is still well behind the rest of the country.

Background and History

Las Vegas has only had its own public medical school for a short time. The Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine took in its first class of 60 students in 2017. It worked out of temporary space on Shadow Lane until a permanent building rose in the Las Vegas Medical District near downtown. That five-story building has about 135,000 square feet. UNLV says donors committed more than $150 million to build the school.

The five-story red and glass Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV building in the Las Vegas Medical District under a clear blue sky

Rheumatology came together step by step after that:

December 2021: UNLV said it was setting up a Division of Rheumatology with a donation from the Engelstad Foundation, to recruit and train specialists.
June 2023: Dr. Winn Chatham joined UNLV to build the clinical and training program. He had spent most of his career at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he directed the lupus clinic.
January 2024: The national body that accredits medical training approved the fellowship after a 14 month process. It was the first rheumatology fellowship in Nevada's history.
July 2024: Training began with the first two fellows.
November 2026: Anthem's gift created the permanent fund.

Fellows train at UNLV Health and at University Medical Center, in both clinics and hospital rooms. The school's program page also lists the VA hospital in North Las Vegas and a pediatric rotation at a local children's arthritis practice. In a weekly clinic, each fellow follows the same patients over time, which is how long-term disease care actually works.

The training is broad. Fellows rotate between the Medical District and the VA in three month blocks, according to the program page. They spend one month each year learning pediatric rheumatology with Dr. Robert Lowe, who UNLV said in 2024 was one of only two full-time pediatric rheumatologists in the state. Electives include dermatology, kidney care, imaging, orthopedics and lung disease. Dr. Mitchell Forman, a rheumatologist with more than 44 years in practice, was the fellowship's director when it won approval. UNLV says the program puts special focus on lupus and the autoimmune disorders that overlap with it.

Why does a program like this need a donor at all? Strobbe noted that federal money for many residency and fellowship spots flows through hospitals and is capped. Netski told FOX5 that Nevada faces money challenges in keeping new residency programs going. UNLV says startup funding got the rheumatology program off the ground. The endowment is meant to keep it running after that early money is gone. That early money came from a community donation and from the Governor's Office of Science, Innovation and Technology, UNLV reported in 2024. VA leaders also pledged to support fellow training after the grant money ended. Martin said the program needs a stable financial base to meet its commitments.

What Happens Next

The real test is whether these doctors stay. Martin told FOX5 that doctors who train in the community where they will live are much more likely to remain, and she put the chance of staying at nearly 80 percent. The specific study behind that number was NOT FOUND in the coverage we reviewed, but News 3 quoted Netski making the same general point.

UNLV Health is watching that closely. Strobbe told UNLV she will measure success by how many fellows stay in Nevada. She also hopes graduates will join the faculty at the medical school and UNLV Health, FOX5 reports. Those doctors would then see patients and teach the next group of fellows, which is how a small program grows.

There is a first data point coming. The first two fellows started in July 2024 in a two-year program, so they would have been due to finish around the middle of 2026. Where they are practicing now is NOT FOUND, and we did not see a report on it. That is worth watching, because it is the earliest real answer to whether this approach works here.

The program also brings research to the valley. UNLV joined the Lupus Clinical Investigators Network, a group of 57 academic research centers in North America. Chatham leads the only lupus clinical research in Southern Nevada supported by that network. UNLV reported in 2025 that two trials were testing an experimental drug in patients with lupus and Sjogren's syndrome. For local patients, that means research studies are being run close to home.

Red and gray letters reading UNLV School of Medicine mounted on a wall between two framed T-shirts

The gift may also matter beyond rheumatology. Aaron Hanson, the medical school's senior director of development, said he hopes it encourages other organizations to support training in more specialties. There is plenty of room. As of early 2024, UNLV said Nevada had no graduate training programs in dermatology, ophthalmology, neurosurgery, urology or hematology and oncology. We could not confirm whether that list has changed since then. No other gift of this kind has been announced in the coverage we reviewed.

Ryan's Take

People moving to Las Vegas ask me about schools, HOA fees and how hot it really gets in August. They ask about doctors less often than they should. Then they arrive, need a specialist, and find out the wait is measured in months. I would rather you know that before you move than after.

I like this gift because it is built to last. A one-time check gets spent. An endowment keeps paying. And a doctor who finishes training here, gets to know patients here and maybe buys a home here is a doctor who is more likely to still be here in 20 years. That is how a city gets better health care, one doctor at a time.

I want to be straight with you, too. I have no data showing that a medical fellowship moves home prices, and I will not pretend it does. What I can say is that good local health care is one of the quiet things that makes a place work for the long haul. If you are comparing parts of the valley, map the drive to your own doctors and hospital before you write an offer. Any buyer can do that, and it takes about five minutes.

A person types on a laptop at a wooden desk with a stethoscope resting in front of the keyboard

What You Can Do

If you are waiting on a specialist, or you think you may need one, a few simple steps can help:

Call early. You can reach the UNLV Health Rheumatology Clinic at 702-671-5060. The clinic is at 1707 W. Charleston Blvd., Suite 230, and is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Whether you need a referral is NOT FOUND on its page, so ask when you call.
Check your insurance first. Ask your plan which local rheumatologists are in network before you book. That one call can save you from waiting months for the wrong office.
Ask to go on a cancellation list. Many offices keep one. Ask each office you call.
Bring your records. Ask your primary care doctor to send lab results and notes ahead of time, so your visit does not get spent starting over.
Learn about research. UNLV says people in its clinical trials receive treatment at no cost, and that Southern Nevadans who are interested can email cto@unlv.edu. Talk to your own doctor first about whether a trial makes sense for you.

If you want to follow this story, UNLV posts medical school news on its news site, and the school offers a newsletter called Making the Rounds. Nothing here is medical advice. Your own doctor is the best person to tell you how urgent your case is, and whether to push for a sooner visit.

Have questions about how this affects your home or neighborhood? Reach out to Ryan Rose or text/call 702-747-5921 anytime.

Ryan Rose | Real Broker, LLC | 702-747-5921 | ryan@rosehomeslv.com | rosehomeslv.com