For years, students who wanted to go to medical school in Washington and Idaho had only one choice, the University of Washington’s WWAMI program, which serves Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. Now they have four choices. They include a private medical school in Yakima that opened in 2008 and the new Washington State University College of Medicine, which opened in the fall. And now Idaho’s first medical school has received permission to begin begin recruiting students.
The Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine expects that its first class of 150 will begin in the fall of 2018. It’s a private school affiliated with Idaho State University and will operate on the university’s campus in Meridian. Here to talk about that is the new college’s founding dean and chief academic officer, Dr. Robert Hasty.
