Medical school might expand

If legislators agree they can afford the plan, Spokane will become home to first-year medical students in the fall of 2008.

Officials at the University of Washington School of Medicine confirmed Thursday the school would add 20 first-year students in Spokane. The program would be a joint effort between the UW and Washington State University Spokane.

“We did this because of the strong support we found in the community for this idea,” said Dr. Tom Norris, vice dean of academic affairs at the UW medical school in Seattle.

Three years ago Spokane-area business and economic-development leaders visited Seattle, urging the medical school to offer first-year courses in Spokane as it already does in Pullman and in Moscow, Idaho.

The UW spent more than a year studying the Spokane option. A formal announcement by WSU and UW officials in late July will spell out the full scope of the expansion, said Norris.

The UW medical school, the only one in the Pacific Northwest, has 100 first-year students at its Seattle campus. It also has a total of 80 students taking first-year classes in Pullman; Moscow; Bozeman; Laramie, Wyo.; and Anchorage, Alaska.

The decision by the UW will add new health-sciences faculty in Spokane and open the door to an expansion of the city’s biomedical research base, said Brian Pitcher, chancellor at WSU Spokane.

Equally important, he said, is the opportunity to address a growing shortage of doctors and medical specialists in rural areas. Research shows that a strong factor in determining where doctors practice is where they take their initial year of medical training, Pitcher said.

The UW also will announce a class of eight dental students in Spokane who will work in coordination with Eastern Washington University, said Norris.

Legislators must approve funding of several million dollars to launch the Spokane medical school expansion, plus an annual operating cost of roughly $1.5 million for the 20 students, Norris explained. Starting the dental program – which would be run by the UW, not its medical school – would cost less, said Norris.

WSU Spokane will provide four to six new faculty members to handle the medical instruction, said Pitcher. The value for the WSU program is the opportunity for closer interaction between teachers, students and local hospitals, he said.

“Spokane is an attractive site because of our relationship with the hospitals here. It will expand our biomedical capability by coupling the (UW) program with the research specializations of our WSU faculty and research physicians,” said Pitcher.

The goal is to find faculty members with impressive research credentials, said Dennis Dyck, vice chancellor for research at WSU Spokane.

“We’ll be looking for people (to fill those jobs) who not only will teach but have world-class research programs and bring significant grants with them,” Dyck said.

What won’t happen soon, Norris said, is something that many Spokane backers of the medical-school program also wanted a second year of training offered in Spokane.

For now, all second-year UW medical courses are taught only in Seattle.

“Because of the integrated curriculum we offer, it would be hard for us to offer second-year programs anywhere but in Seattle,” Norris said.

The UW medical school currently allows third- and fourth-year students to take advanced clerkships at Spokane hospitals.

“That group of advanced students is likely to increase by the year 2010,” Norris said. By that point the first 20 students from the 2008 class would be eligible for those slots, he said.

Idaho educators hope to add two more first-year UW slots in Moscow for 2008; currently, there are 18 first-year students there. Montana officials are asking legislators in that state to fund 10 more first-year positions, bringing the first-year class in Bozeman to 30.

Adding slots is expensive, noted Pitcher. Per-student costs to Montana taxpayers come to about $50,000 a year; in Washington, the price tag is closer to $70,000 per student per year, said Norris.