Construction begins on new medical school

Workers broke ground for a medical building on Washington State University's Riverpoint campus Oct. 5. Slated for completion in 2013, the building is the joint effort of WSU and the University of Washington to create a second four-year medical program in the state.

With UW's medical school — in Seattle — being the only comprehensive program in a five-state area (except for the College of Occidental Medicine in Yakima), high selectivity makes many prospective students question their ability to enter the health field. The pre-existing health degrees obtainable at WSU, including nursing and pharmacy, create a diverse coalition of skill that will foster a "uniquely interprofessional" atmosphere in the new facility, according to WSU Riverpoint Chancellor Brian Pitcher. 

The Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho program was created to give students from those states a collaborative medical education. They undergo their first year of study at their home university, then must transfer to Seattle for the second, specialized year before finding a residency program for the third and fourth years. Medical students from this region will soon have a second option for their second year of graduate school, or all four, if they so choose. There are currently 20 students per year accepted into Spokane's WWAMI outpost.

Medical students across the Inland Northwest often groan the adage "I was WWAMI-ed" when assigned to residencies in Spokane rather than Seattle. However, minds are quickly changed when these reluctant students find themselves getting ample hands-on time with patients, while their Seattle peers are faced with endless classmates vying for patient time and limited availability of medical staff. 

Jaime Nielsen, a third-year resident at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, is glad she was placed in Spokane. An out-of-state student, she moved to Spokane with her husband for her first year at the Riverpoint campus, then rented a room in Seattle for her second year while her partner remained in Spokane.

"Spokane is primed to have a medical school. There is a really dense medical community, and it's a hub of the Inland Northwest."

Were Nielsen a bit younger, she would have been able to complete all four years here at the Riverpoint campus.

"There are two parts to the equation," Pitcher said. "It is about meeting needs, particularly for primary care. [Secondly], the health sciences are active in externally funded research; students with graduate degrees [work together] with clinical faculty. This will be both a dynamic educational and research enterprise."

Spokane boasts five hospitals for an extended populace, including smaller regional demographics in Washington and Northern Idaho, and the need for a feeder program is pressing. Nursing shortages, the prevalence of out-of-state doctors and the growing need for pharmacists plague Eastern Washington, according to WSU Spokane's Health Sciences webpage. The idea behind building a local medical school is that students will complete their residency at Deaconess Medical Center or Sacred Heart and then stay on as a staff member.

Doug Nadvornick, WSU's health sciences communications coordinator, is concerned with getting students the optimal amount of "face time" with patients, as well as mentorship with WSU medical instructors and local doctors. The "silo effect" of most integrated medical facilities is such that nurse, therapist and doctor students merely interact with classmates rather than a reality-based simulation in which all professionals work in tandem.  

"The challenge is to get them to do things together. In the nursing labs, mannequins are used to practice skills. [In the new research facility], nursing, pharmacy and therapy students will work together in scenarios to figure out emergent medical [care]. Nurses learn from their nursing program, but that's just one part of the scheme. There might be something you could learn better from a pharmacy or doctor student," Nadvornick said.

The proposed 81,747-square-foot building with 34 faculty members will have the majority of its space — 33 percent — concentrated in research labs where a variety of health care students will work often side-by-side. In addition to consolidating the second year in one place, WSU pharmacy students will no longer be split between Pullman and Spokane locations.

Pitcher and Nadvornick discussed the time frame in which the WSU/UW budget allows them to operate. The school has $35 million to erect the building, but administrators would need to lobby the Legislature for the same amount to later fill in the structure's "guts," according to Nadvornick. There will be 20 medical students admitted into WSU's medical school in 2013, with a yearly student growth mirroring the maturity of the program.

"The goal is to have 120 med students per class in 10 years," Pitcher said.

Pitcher is confident that the medical school will have a positive effect on the greater Spokane area in terms of economic and communal benefits.

"For WSU and GU, we are concerned with where students live and whether it is safe. The development will have ripple effects on [nearby] neighborhoods. Our neighborhoods will be made safer [by the incurrence of medical staff and students moving into proximal apartments and houses] and opportunities will become presented for [the community]," Pitcher said.