March 25, 2012 in Opinion

A week ago Friday was match day for the first class of students to complete their studies at the WWAMI medical school program inSpokane.

Six of the 20 matched with Spokane-area residencies, the most ever for the University of Washington School of Medicine, which administers the Spokane program in conjunction with Washington State University. Odds are, those doctors will remain in Eastern Washington, where they will help remedy an ongoingshortage.

If so, the potential that Spokane-trained doctors would remain in the region will have been realized, as it has been hundreds of times since WWAMI was established 40 years ago to educate and retain more doctors in the participating states: Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana andIdaho.

About 4,600 doctors in five states, including 400 in Spokane, help train WWAMI students. That multistate distribution of students into every corner of the region has been one of the programs uniquecharacteristics.

Students on the UW/WSU Riverpoint Campus still transfer to Seattle for their second year of training, but a pilot program to be launched in 2013 will allow them to stay in Spokane and root themselves more firmly in the InlandNorthwest.

Spokane businesses, individuals and foundations are raising $2.3million to sustain the pilot for two years, with the expectation its success will convince legislators to provide the money in the future. The community, which pushed doggedly to get a medical school here, is putting its money where its maxillais.

WWAMI is abargain.

The average cost of medical education in the United States is $105,000 per year, per student. WWAMI does the job for $65,000, yet is consistently named best program for educating rural doctors and familypractitioners.

Read more from the original source:
Editorial: Medical education expansion needs buy-in - Sun, 25 Mar 2012 PST