![Lili Szabo [left] and class President Allegra Vanderwilde display placards that show their residency assignments.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e84a890/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3024x4032+0+0/resize/840x1120!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F10%2F45%2Ff79b91494124b9fc8a5f355f20f9%2Fimg-7962.jpeg)
Several Washington medical students will begin their careers in Spokane after they graduate this spring.
The University of Washington School of Medicine reports three of its students who started in Spokane matched with Spokane residency programs. They include Lili Szabo, who received the news in a Friday morning email.
“I was super relieved to see it was Spokane. So excited. I just had such a good feeling about the program and we are just going to probably stay in Spokane indefinitely. We’re super excited to put down roots here and hopefully buy a house at some point soon and just kind of get settled," she said.
Szabo is engaged to a Spokane native. She grew up in Seattle and earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Washington, but eagerly came to Spokane to start her medical training.
“When I came into medical school, I was thinking I’d do pediatrics or family medicine, something like that. But when I did my rotations in third year, I found quickly that, while I love being around children, I don’t like taking care of them, like, medically. I was like, oh gosh, there’s always screaming and I was like, I can’t do that. So I quickly learned I wasn’t cut out for children," she said.
So she chose internal medicine. She’ll be one of 10 new residents in Spokane’s internal medicine residency.
WSU’s College of Medicine reports it will send three new doctors, at least one a Spokane native, to Spokane’s family medicine residency. One will be based at WSU’s new pediatrics residency in Spokane.
WSU reports 25 of its 60 or so graduates will stay in the Northwest for at least the next three years.
The UW School of Medicine hasn’t yet released a breakdown of this year’s matches, but last year it reported sending 38 of its 280 or so graduates to Washington-based residency programs, including four to Spokane.
WSU’s new pediatrics residency in Spokane said it will welcome its first six physicians in July, the same month the university’s family medicine residency in Pullman will greet its second group of three doctors. Spokane’s VA Medical Center has announced it will welcome two new doctors to train in its behavioral health services unit.
The Spokane Teaching Health Center will also welcome 10 new residents in each of its internal and family medicine residency programs in Spokane, as well as several others in its one-year transitional year program.
