mark doescher

Biographical Information

Mark Doescher, MD, MSPH, is the Director of the Washington-Wyoming-Alaska-Montana-Idaho (WWAMI) Rural Health Research Center and the UW Center for Health Workforce Studies and an Associate Professor at the University of Washington (UW) Department of Family Medicine. He is also Associate Director of the WWAMI Area Health Education Center, and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Rural Health. The WWAMI Rural Health Research Center is one of seven research and policy centers funded by HRSA to examine rural health issues. Dr. Doescher has extensive background and expertise in assessing both rural and urban health care issues with an emphasis on family medicine and primary care as well as care for underserved populations. His main research goals are to examine issues concerning the health professional workforce, access to health care and health care delivery in rural settings. Dr. Doescher has conducted and published the outcomes of numerous studies examining primary care supply among various types of health care professionals, oral health care, preventive care and chronic illness among rural Americans. In 2010 he was an invited member of the AcademyHealth Expert Group on Data and Research Infrastructure Challenges in the Area of Health Workforce, the Washington State Legislative Joint Select Committee on Health Reform, Subgroup on Workforce, and the Washington State Health Care Personnel Shortage Task Force. He is currently Principal Investigator of a 3-year study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to evaluate the effects of the built environment in three diverse regions on walking among small town residents. Dr. Doescher, Ms. Skillman and Dr. Patterson are currently collaborating with a consortium of rural educators to provide technical assistance to Rural Training Track family medicine residency program sites nationally. Dr. Doescher received his MD from the University of California, San Francisco, and completed residency training in Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and in Family Medicine at the University of Rochester/Highland Hospital.