Spokane medical students learn where they will start their careers

SPOKANE, Wash. – Many college graduates struggle to find work right after earning their diplomas. But nine University of Washington medical students based in Spokane this year already have their next jobs lined up.

 

The students were ‘matched’ with hospitals around the country, as part of the National Resident Matching Program’s ‘Match Day’. 

At the beginning of their fourth and final year of medical school, students apply to the residency programs where they’ll work after they graduate with their medical degrees. (The residencies last three to seven years, depending on a student’s specialty, and are required before the new doctors can earn their licenses to practice.) The students rank the programs where they want to work. In return, the programs rank the students they want. Then a high-powered computer matches them. Friday, medical students around the country opened their envelopes and found out where they matched.

Of the nine students who gathered on Spokane’s Riverpoint Campus Friday to learn about their matches, six started medical school in Spokane. They were members of Spokane’s second class of first-year medical students. The other three started in the Pullman-Moscow class at WSU and the University of Idaho.

2013 Spokane medical students who matched on March 15:

•Mallory Beale: hometown: Pomeroy, WA; started medical school in Pullman; residency: Spokane; specialty: family medicine

•Brad Blakely: hometown: Spokane, WA; started medical school in Spokane; residency: Bakersfield, CA; specialty: emergency medicine

•Paige Flett: started medical school in Moscow, ID; residency: Spokane ; specialty: radiology

•Tim Hatlen: hometown: Sammamish, WA; started medical school in Spokane; residency: Spokane; specialty: internal medicine

•Colette Inaba: hometown: Covington, WA; started medical school in Spokane; residency: Orange, CA ; specialty: surgery

•Kristin Johnson: hometown: Coeur d’Alene, ID; started medical school in Moscow, ID; residency: Salt Lake City; specialty: pediatrics 

•Richard Martin: hometown: Spokane; started medical school in Spokane; residency: Madison, WI; specialty: internal medicine 

•Jaime Nielsen: hometown: Mesa, AZ; started medical school in Spokane; residency: Boise, ID ; specialty: family medicine

•Alexandra Windhorn: hometown: Spokane Valley, WA; started medical school in Spokane; residency: Seattle; specialty: pediatrics

In addition, two students who started in Spokane in fall 2009 also matched with Spokane residencies: Ian May and Angela Olson, both internal medicine.  They were in Seattle today at the Match Day ceremony at the University of Washington.

Spokane’s Sacred Heart Medical Center is home to about 70 residents in five programs, including family medicine, internal medicine and radiology, as well as two fellowships.

Since the mid-1970s, third- and fourth-year UW medical students have fulfilled some of their clinical requirements in Spokane’s hospitals and clinics. 

In the fall of 2008, the first group of 20 first-year medical students began taking classes with WSU Spokane faculty on the Riverpoint Campus. Those students matched last year; four are first-year residents at Sacred Heart.

Next fall, Spokane’s first class of 20 second-year medical students will begin in the first year of a two-year pilot program. That means students will be able to stay in Spokane for their full four years of medical school.

WSU Spokane is Washington State University’s urban health sciences campus. Located on the Riverpoint Campus near downtown Spokane, WSU Spokane prepares the state’s future generations of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals and houses world-class research that leads to healthier people and communities. Learn more about WSU’s growing health sciences campus at http://www.spokane.wsu.edu.