Officials at Washington State University believe the time has come to pursue an independently accredited medical school at WSU Spokane, and they say Southwest Washington and WSU Vancouver are well-positioned to benefit.
Last week, the WSU Board of Regents unanimously approved a resolution directing university leadership to pursue approval for a school of medicine. That resolution came after a presentation by representatives from MGT of America – a national consulting firm hired by WSU to study the feasibility of the university pursuing its own medical school.
According to MGT’s report, a WSU school of medicine could help to alleviate a severe physician shortage in areas outside of the Seattle area. The University of Washington in Seattle is currently the state’s only public medical school, and the study contends that the number of available slots for medical students at that school hasn’t kept pace with the state’s population. Additionally, the study revealed that 18 of 39 counties in Washington have 10 or fewer physicians per 10,000 residents, while King County has more than four times as many.
“The data has been pretty compelling in talking about the need for increased physicians and how that need will continue to grow [in] Southwest Washington,” said WSU Vancouver Chancellor Mel Netzhammer.
Preliminary accreditation of the school could be earned in early 2016, with a charter class of 40 students beginning in fall 2017. By the 2021-22 school year the institution could graduate 120 students per year.
Local impact
The university aims to follow a community-based medical education model where students would spend their first two years on the Spokane campus and then go into communities throughout the state for clinical training with existing care providers like PeaceHealth and Legacy Health.
Mike Worthy, chair of the Board of Regents, and Ken Roberts, acting dean of WSU, agreed that this approach is ideal for students, communities like Clark County and care providers.
“The traditional medical school that would have a teaching hospital generating revenue and taking in patients competes with other medical care providers,” Worthy said. “With this community-based model we’re not competing with any medical service providers. We can partner with all of them.”
“Students really have a chance to connect with the community,” said Roberts. “They develop relationships with patients as well as with the [care] provider. That also contributes to [employee] retention.”
Netzhammer added, “The [community model] connects us and really makes us excited about what is really a system initiative – not just a WSU Spokane or WSU Pullman initiative. I think it really is a statewide initiative and that is very important to us.”
Because the medical school initiative encourages partnerships with existing providers, no new facilities would need to be built at WSU Vancouver. However, Netzhammer said future initiatives could compliment the program.
“Currently, our number one capital request is a life sciences building for our campus,” he said. “So even though that’s down the road, it would give us more capabilities for medical research.”
Working with WWAMI
As a university, WSU is no stranger to medical education. In addition to a well-established nursing program, the school has been providing first-year medical education in Spokane for more than 40 years in partnership with the University of Washington School of Medicine’s remote-site medical education program for Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho (WWAMI).
According to Worthy, WSU remains committed to the WWAMI program and sees the new medical school initiative as complimentary.
“We’re the largest WWAMI partner and want to continue to be, but that only happens in Spokane. We don’t have WAMMI in Vancouver, the Tri-Cities or elsewhere,” he said. “Having branch campuses throughout the state allows us to cultivate partnerships in community hospitals like PeaceHealth and Legacy. If we focused only on WWAMI we wouldn’t have the opportunity to do that.”
Officials at the University of Washington have expressed disappointment with WSU’s medical school initiative, suggesting that an expansion of the WWAMI program would be a more cost-effective way to meet the demand for doctors within the state.
Laura Jennings, WSU regent, said there’s no reason why additional paths in medical education can’t exist.
“There is no question that the excellence of the University of Washington program is a real blessing to the state,” said Jennings, “but, this is not an either/or proposition. This is a yes/and proposition. We need both WWAMI and a new medical school to meet the needs.”
The state legislature must approve the creation of another publicly funded medical school in order for WSU to move ahead with its initiative. Based on initial outreach, Worthy said the school is “very encouraged” about gaining legislative approval.
