David R. Greeley M.D.

Spokane has a great medical school at the Riverpoint campus thanks to years of successful collaboration between the University of Washington and Washington State University. Accredited to the UW School of Medicine, Spokanes medical school contributes to and shares in the top ranking from U.S. News & World Report for over 20 years No. 1 in the country in primary care, family medicine and ruralmedicine.

Spokanes medical school started in 2008 as an expansion of the WWAMI program a regional medical education program provided by the UW School of Medicine in partnership with universities from the WWAMI

You have viewed 20 free articles or blogs allowed within a 30-day period. FREE registration is now required for uninterrupted access.

S-R Media, The Spokesman-Review and Spokesman.com are happy to assist you. Contact Customer Service by email or call 800-338-8801

Spokane has a great medical school at the Riverpoint campus thanks to years of successful collaboration between the University of Washington and Washington State University. Accredited to the UW School of Medicine, Spokanes medical school contributes to and shares in the top ranking from U.S. News & World Report for over 20 years No. 1 in the country in primary care, family medicine and ruralmedicine.

Spokanes medical school started in 2008 as an expansion of the WWAMI program a regional medical education program provided by the UW School of Medicine in partnership with universities from the WWAMI states (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho) with WSU-Pullman an acting partner for 42 years. The program was designed to train physicians in their home states states that did not have their own medical school and particularly to provide training in underserved rural areas in those states with the hope that physicians would return to work there after they completed theireducation.

For years, medical students in the WWAMI program would have only the opportunity of spending their first year of medical school training in their home state or region. Then, in 2008, the UW, in collaboration with WSU, began to offer the WWAMI model of medical school in Spokane with all but the second year of instruction occurring here. This past year, the UW and WSU began to offer the second year in Spokane as well, enabling students to earn their medical degrees while studying and training for all four years in Spokane. Spokanes medical school is up and running and training new doctors rightnow.

Producing doctors comes in two phases: four years of medical school followed typically by three or more years of residency training. After four years of medical school, students seek placement in a residency program in their chosen specialty, and that residency program can take them anywhere in the United States. Where one ends up practicing medicine is very closely correlated to where one does residency training, not medicalschool.

As part of its WWAMI program, the UW School of Medicine has built an expansive network of residency training programs throughout the state of Washington and the Northwest. The UW has been training residents in Spokanes hospitals and clinics for virtually all of its 42 years, as well as in rural hospitals and clinics throughout Eastern Washington. Born and raised in Seattle, I went to college and medical school at the UW in Seattle. But it was my training in the WWAMI program over my third and fourth years of medical school that brought me out to Spokane, Missoula, Great Falls and Boise, and the eventual return to establish my private neurology practice in Spokane, where I have been working over the past 20 years. We are at the start of a great expansion here in Spokane and without the WWAMI program this was unlikely tooccur.

See the original post here:

Guest opinion: With cooperation, medical school ready to thrive - Sat, 06 Sep 2014 PST