On May 3, the fifth class of students at Washington State University's Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine will walk across the stage to collect their medical degrees.
Each year, the college welcomes 80 students. They spend their first two years studying in Spokane, then the bulk of their final two years working at clinical sites near the WSU campuses in Spokane, the Tri-Cities, Vancouver or Everett.
The college recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with a ceremony at its new home, the first building that opened on the Riverpoint campus 30 years ago. It has been renovated for medical students and Dean James Record is proud to show it off.
"You'll notice this room with 10 tables set up to receive all 80 students in the same room on a level playing field, literally, which, for thinking about folks with disabilities, we wanted to make sure it was really inclusive. And if you look on the walls next to each of these tables, is a touchscreen TV that both can connect to a center lecture as well as across the state to our different campuses. Each of these tables is set up such that they can be independently used by each of these screens, but also we can beam in from any of our campuses.
"We are trying to create, in essence, a large room that can be broken up into a virtual small group setting of groups of eight. And then across the hall from that large room are 10 smaller rooms filled with a table, eight chairs, plus an exam table where our experiential curriculum in the virtual setting can be brought in and with patient actors coming in to help support what they're learning there in a more practical and, frankly, a more appropriate small group intimate setting. That flexibility to have that in the same building has really improved our ability to tie the curriculum in with the students and the space itself."
When the college was founded, it vowed to accept only students who lived in Washington or had familial ties to the state.
"We are thrilled to say that we only have in-state tuition because we take Washington residents. Our goal is actually to make sure that we're trying to pull from all of our counties," Record said.
This summer, the new graduates will move on to residency programs, essentially the apprenticeship phase for new doctors. Many students from the college's first class have finished their residencies and begun their professional careers.
"We're really excited because, for those that finished the three-year [the standard length of residencies] and went into practice, we have 18. Twelve of them are already in Washington. And as it turns out, 11 of them are now faculty at WSU, teaching the students and really bringing it full circle, which is always a challenge for a school to be created because there aren't enough physicians.
"Of the six that haven't yet come back, five of them are looking to come back," he said.
One of the challenges left is creating more residency programs to lure new doctors to stay in Washington. The college has developed three of its own: a family medicine residency program based in Pullman, a pediatric residency program affiliated with Sacred Heart in Spokane and an internal medicine residency in Everett.
After the new doctors finished their residency training, the goal was to get them into small towns and cities like Chewelah and Colfax.
"Since you mentioned Colfax, we have one of our graduates, Brent Conrad, who is still accepting patients for those who are interested in Colfax, and we're really excited. I mean, it's the first year that we've been able to finally show this, so we expect a lot more. So we're looking forward to even more folks coming back and populating those areas, oftentimes where they grew up. That's the real exciting part for us. So we're obviously keeping tabs on that and excited about our graduates.
"We're also excited, too, as much as we have an issue with a need for primary care, we actually have a significant need for non-primary care in this state. And if we're really going to look at serving folks in rural America generally, and rural Washington specifically, we have to know that they deserve the same kind of care that you should be able to get in an urban setting. And that means that primary care is where you start. It is not where you finish. We want to make sure that we have folks in other specialties coming in and making sure that they're serving the state in a more meaningful way across all of the medical health care landscape."
Spokane is home to two medical schools. The University of Washington, through its relationship with Gonzaga, also trains students for their first 18 months, at their shared Health Partnership Building adjacent to the Gonzaga campus.
The WSU medical school was created, in part, because of a dispute between WSU and UW over how to administer medical education through UW's WWAMI (Washington Wyoming Alaska Montana Idaho) program in Spokane. The WSU was a WWAMI affiliate and hosted first-year students on the Riverpoint campus. Spokane community leaders convinced the UW to allow second-year students to also study here. But the two institutions disagreed about how to do that, so then-WSU President Elson Floyd decided his school should pursue its own program. For years, there has been tension between WSU and UW over that. What's the relationship now?
"I'm happy to say we count a number of University of Washington faculty on our staff," Record said. "I have a good relationship with their dean and their local regional dean, and I think some of the challenges that marked the origin have started to mellow. And for me, this is the most exciting part, because this state needs both institutions. Not to care so much about territoriality. It is really about how we work together.
"And so having the two schools here building up and looking at faculty development programs and joint Grand Rounds (case-based medical education events) and talking about graduate medical education programs like residencies and fellowships. Having that really lifts the academic environment and makes it a more attractive place for faculty to come, for students to come. It really helps build the interest in an area that is so desperately needing more in the way of both health care support services and the academics."
