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WSU clinic a critical cog

Recently, I attended the groundbreaking for the new University District Health Clinic. When it opens in 2016, the clinic will provide health care to many residents, making it an important new asset for Spokane.

But its value goes far beyond that. The clinic is a collaboration between Washington State University, Providence Health Care and Empire Health Foundation. The partners came together last year to achieve something we haven’t seen in 20 years: new medical residency training slots in Spokane.

In Washington, there are 1,600 residency training slots; that’s the training medical students must complete after finishing medical school. Where they do this training influences where they ultimately practice. Less than 7 percent of those 1,600 residencies are in Eastern Washington.

While that uneven distribution should have been fixed years ago, it wasn’t. It took this new model of community leadership to make it happen. This innovative collaboration, combined with WSU’s plans to develop a medical school here, will be game-changers for our community.

WSU has continued to invest millions of dollars into building educational and community infrastructure in the University District that will benefit Spokane. We are fortunate to have the leadership of this group of community-minded organizations.

Kim Pearman-Gillman

Veradale

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