Guest opinion: Med school a vital local need
Eastern Washington needs a full medical school in Spokane to yield a sufficient physician supply for our future. Nationally, physicians tend to practice near where they train. Eastern Washington needs a medical school that develops students who are invested in our region. Merely hosting a satellite of Seattle’s program is not enough.
The University of Washington WWAMI program – Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho – was designed to link UW’s excellent medical school to small regional populations, as they existed more than 40 years ago. A WWAMI satellite was never designed for our current population needs, nor has it kept pace with a changing population. WWAMI has added only 20 seats in Washington over the past 40 years.
Media discussion about medical education in Spokane has missed the central point. The important question for our legislators is not which university should run medical education. The important question is whether Spokane will host only a WWAMI extension site or will have its own full-fledged medical school to serve our region.
Over the past two years, a number of Spokane physicians have united as the ad hoc group “Washington Alliance of Teaching Physicians.” We urge the creation of a new, independently-accredited medical school in Spokane. We have taught in the WWAMI system for years, but we are now compelled by the facts to advocate that Spokane should be the home of a full-fledged medical school, not just another revision of the UW WWAMI extension program.
Washington’s promising students also need a new school. After 40 years of WWAMI, Washington has less than one-third the average number of medical school seats found in other states. Gifted, compassionate students leave Washington every year to enroll in medical school somewhere else. We cannot simply import them back once we have lost them.
What must be made very clear to our legislators, our mayors and our business leaders, is the way our region stands to benefit from a new medical school. The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) reports the economic impact of medical schools on each state. UWSOM is the single highest-funded public research university medical school in the nation – but Washington stands in a disappointing 25th place, in terms of economic benefit of having a medical school. States with strong economic results all have two or more fully-accredited medical schools.
In 2010, a Tripp-Umbach report commissioned by Greater Spokane Incorporated showed that a medical school in Spokane will drive a $2.1-billion statewide economic impact. $1.6 billion of that would be working for eastern Washington. This all depends on having a real medical school creating research, industry and employment opportunities at the east end of Washington. A medical school draws talent and spins off new business, and creates jobs ranging from research scientists to basic building maintenance. This is the bottom-line difference between Spokane having a medical school, versus just hosting a WWAMI site.
Spokane’s physician-educators all agree that medical education must expand in Spokane. A new medical school is the right way to do it. Washington State University has the necessary health sciences education and research infrastructure on the Spokane campus to establish a new high-value medical school. We call for widespread support for a new WSU medical school, built upon innovative modern curricula, fostering regional economic and technological development, and training the professionals that we need for a future of world-class health care.