Medical Students
Letter from the Director
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Department of Medicine undergraduate training home page. With the many changes that have taken place in medicine in recent years, this is an exciting time in education. Our program has always worked hard to balance teaching in primary care and subspecialty medicine. As the practice of internal medicine has shifted toward the outpatient setting, our educational program continues to develop innovations to increase learning about ambulatory medicine.
Opportunities for learning are available at all levels of training. In their first and second years before clinical clerkships begin, medical students can participate in preceptorship training, often in the offices of community physicians. In their third year, all medical students take the required 12-week medicine clerkship. In addition, there are approximately 30 electives in a wide range of subspecialties for third and fourth year students.
Students rotate through six training hospitals in the Seattle/Tacoma area: University of Washington Medical Center, Harborview Medical Center, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Evergreen Medical Center, Virginia Mason Medical Center, and Madigan Army Medical Center. Affiliated training sites in the WWAMI region include Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane and the Boise VA Medical Center in Boise, Idaho. There are also a number of clinical sites in other WWAMI locations, including Alaska, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming.
To reflect our commitment to teaching and providing quality ambulatory care, the Department of Medicine Student Program has undergone several important changes in the past five years. In order to provide primary care opportunities to medical students in the 12-week third year basic medicine clerkship, we have introduced a four-week ambulatory care block as part of the clerkship. Many students choose to emphasize ambulatory care training by participating in the WWAMI program. Through this program, they can complete four, six, or 12 weeks of their basic medicine clerkship at an affiliated training site in Washington, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, or Wyoming.
By expanding our curriculum and adding new community-based teaching sites in Alaska, Washington, and Wyoming, we hope to emphasize the mission of the University of Washington School of Medicine to provide quality primary care medical training.
Please let me know if I can provide you with further information about the department's student program.
Sincerely,
Douglas S. Paauw, MD
Professor of Medicine
Rathmann Family Foundation Endowed Chair
in Patient-Centered Clinical Education
Director, Medicine Student Programs