Expansion may be on the horizon for Idaho’s medical education program.
Andrew Turner — director of the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho Education Program or WWAMI — said Idaho is falling behind in terms of the number of physicians per population.
“The number of physicians we have is growing pretty thin, but the population is really booming,” Turner said.

A couple of years ago, Idaho was somewhere between 47 and 49 in the nation for the ratio of physicians to population, Turner said.
WWAMI is a medical education program based out of University of Washington’s medical school. The program is run on both UW and University of Idaho campuses with UI students starting their education in Idaho followed by attending UW and then finishing their last year in Idaho if they choose to.
Turner said Idaho has 20 seats for the program.
In 2007, the  Idaho State Board of Education issued a study on medical education in Idaho stating they must increase the number of students in the program.

Turner said the study offered four options for the state to do this.
“(We can) get our own medical school, expand our existing programs like the WWAMI program, develop our own consortium between major schools,” Turner said. “The fourth option (is) related to residencies. Develop more residencies in the state so that students can complete their training in Idaho and stay in Idaho.”

Turner said the SBOE continues to look into the issue and the Idaho Legislature has started a committee to research the options for the program as well.
“The debate’s getting pretty hot and heavy right now because there are certainly proponents of the idea that Idaho should start its own medical school, and there are those who think it’s more cost effective to stay with a successful program and grow it,” Turner said.
Turner said starting a full four-year branch campus in Idaho would be the most cost effective method for Idaho’s medical education program. UI would be considered a branch campus of UW.

“We’d have to do two things to do this,” Turner said. “We’d have to develop a secondary of medicine here in the state of Idaho, and that would have to be down in Boise because it has to involve major medical centers … and we’d have to expand the number of students in the class at least double, maybe triple.”
John Rusche, Idaho State Representative, said Idaho should expand the WWAMI program by adding more seats to it.
“My feeling is that WWAMI has been an excellent partner,” Rusche said. “It was designed particularly to train and promote primary care positions.”
Rusche said Idaho needs to stop and look at what it needs to do.

“Are we trying to fund (more) medical school seats, or are we trying to address the physicians’ supply needs or are we trying to do both?” he said.
Rusche said after figuring out what the state is trying to do, it will then be able to figure out how to address the issue and what kind of program the state needs.
“I think we need to support primary medical care through financial and social support,” Rusche said. “Hopefully the legislature will come up with some recommendation, but when you come to the bottom line, there’s no money this year for new programs.”

Rusche said talking about producing a medical school or even buying new seats is something that will be difficult given the way the economy is right now.
“It is time to really plan — identify what vision is for the future and plan for a way to achieve that,” Rusche said.
He said he thinks the governor of Idaho understands the successes of WWAMI.
“(When) you consider that we provide 20 seats a year, and we get 15 to 16 doctors in Idaho from the program, that’s amazingly good,” Rusche said.

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.