SPOKANE – When will Spokane get a four-year medical school?
“As soon as possible.”
That was the response University of Washington president Mark Emmert gave when Spokesman-Review newspaper publisher Stacey Cowles asked that question at the recent Greater Spokane Incorporated annual meeting. The community’s goal of having a full medical school here took center stage at the event, with Emmert and WSU President Elson S. Floyd both saying they are on board and working together to make it happen.
“WSU will be in lock step with the community’s priorities in health sciences,” Floyd said, “and we will do so with uncompromising commitment to collaboration with partners like the University of Washington.
“We bring programs grounded in the community’s strengths and assets,” he said. “That’s what great universities do.”
Three of the four years of medical school already take place in Spokane. Third- and fourth-year medical students go through various clinical rotations under the mentorship of area physicians, who are critical to the education of more doctors.
WSU has taught first-year students at the Pullman campus ever since the institution of the five-state WWAMI medical education partnership with UW in 1972. In fall 2008, 20 first-year students began their studies at WSU Spokane, in the first expansion of Washington’s medical education system in more than three decades.
With Spokane’s strengths as a regional medical center and with WSU health-sciences research faculty located on the Spokane campus, many of the pieces are already in place. The missing piece: second-year medical education.
Currently medical students from all five WWAMI states go to Seattle for their second year of studies, creating a bottleneck for expansion. A feasibility study group is working to analyze what it will take to expand to a four-year medical school in Spokane, both through the addition of second-year studies and through expansion of clinical placements to accommodate more third- and fourth-year students throughout eastern Washington. The committee expects to have its report completed by the end of the year.
Both presidents thanked Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, present in the audience, for her leadership in obtaining funding for the 20 first-year medical and eight first-year dental students studying at Spokane’s Riverpoint Campus.
Floyd also expressed appreciation for predesign and planning money obtained in the 2009 legislative session for a Biomedical/Health Sciences Building, the next to be constructed at Riverpoint and a critical element in expanding research infrastructure to support faculty in medicine, pharmacy and other programs. (See related article here)
In an era of tight – and shrinking – budgets, both university presidents also spoke to the need for additional resources to meet the state’s shortage of physicians, saying a full medical school presence isn’t possible without support from the community and the Legislature.
“With all due respect,” Emmert said, “we’ll be coming to you in the next legislative session for more help.”
