The UW, in partnership with the city’s health care professionals and other higher education institutions, will work to rapidly grow and continue to implement innovative approaches to medical education intended to prepare the next generation of family physicians and other doctors needed to serve both Spokane and rural and underserved urban areas in Washington.

“When the 91探花 pioneered the WWAMI model more than 40 years ago, we broke the mold of traditional medical education,” said 91探花President Michael K. Young. “Today, the program provides the highest-quality medical education at the most affordable cost of any program in the nation.聽 In recognition of the critical role that the Spokane community plays in the overall health of the state of Washington and the Inland Empire, it’s time to make WWAMI-Spokane the next generation of innovation in medical education.”

The UW’s WWAMI Program is a very successful partnership of the states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho devoted to the healthcare professional needs of the communities.

The Next Generation WWAMI plan includes three elements.

First, thanks to the generous support of the Spokane community, which raised private dollars to temporarily fund the second year of medical education in Spokane, the 91探花School of Medicine will seek state funding in the next legislative session to guarantee that Spokane will become the first permanent four-year medical education program outside Seattle in the five-state WWAMI region. This funding request will also support previously-announced plans by the UW, in partnership with Washington State University, to quadruple the number of students in Spokane’s classrooms from 20 to 80 per year.

“Spokane is my home. WWAMI-Spokane allows me to attend the 91探花 School of Medicine in the community I grew up in and love,” said Lauren Benson, second-year 91探花medical student in Spokane. “Making the second year WWAMI pilot permanent gives other students like me from Spokane access to the best medical education in the country right here in our community. It’s the best possible way to train for the profession I am so dedicated to.”

Second, the 91探花School of Medicine will adopt a new state-of-the art medical education curriculum in Spokane and expand clinical training opportunities in underserved areas across the state, including Yakima, Tri-Cities, Wenatchee, Bellingham and Vancouver. The new curriculum is characterized by greater integration in the program of basic science with clinical training, more active learning, and an emphasis on team-based, inter-professional medical education.聽 New and enhanced clinical training sites will ensure that students educated in Spokane will have the desperately-needed opportunities to put their education into required practice.

“Federal healthcare reform has not only changed how we provide healthcare but also increased the number of people who need access to primary and preventive care. 聽In order to provide the highest quality of care at the lowest cost, programs like WWAMI must be responsive.聽 The new WWAMI curriculum will teach students how to provide patient centered care by working in inter-professional healthcare teams,” said Darryl Potyk, M.D., a general internist who is a faculty member at the Providence Sacred Heart Internal Medicine Residency Program and Assistant Clinical Dean for WWAMI Spokane.

Third, the WWAMI partnerships will enable the growth of biomedical research in Spokane. This is the most exciting time in history for medical research, and success with translating the research discoveries to improvements in healthcare depends on collaboration among multiple organizations. The Spokane medical community has a strong history of clinical innovation. Next Generation WWAMI will provide the stimulus for the connection of basic medical research to clinical innovation in Spokane.

“Next Generation WWAMI brings medical education closer to students’ homes in eastern Washington and also provides clinical training opportunities in communities throughout the state,” said Paul Ramsey, CEO of 91探花Medicine and Dean of the 91探花School of Medicine. “This effort will have a positive impact on the entire state, including the development of more programs that will enable translation of research discoveries to improvements in patient care.”

As part of ensuring the successful development of the Next Generation WWAMI program in Spokane, UW’s Young will appoint an Advisory Council on Medical Education Access and Affordability to be led by former Gov. Dan Evans, who signed the original legislation establishing the WWAMI program in 1971. The council will conduct “listening and learning tours” of various WWAMI communities to gather important feedback on local healthcare needs which will be used to inform the implementation of the Next Generation WWAMI program in Spokane and at other clinical training sites around the state.聽 Members of the Council will be announced in the next several weeks.

“Spokane and the 91探花 have enjoyed a strong and productive medical education partnership for many years, and we look forward to this relationship growing even stronger and deeper,” said Spokane Mayor David Condon.聽 “I’m excited that Governor Evans has agreed to take on this important task on behalf of Spokane and the state of Washington.”

The 91探花School of Medicine is the No. 1-ranked primary care medical school in the nation and is also ranked No. 1 in the nation for training family medicine physicians and No. 1 in rural medicine. In addition, UW/WWAMI specialty training programs in AIDS education (No. 4), pediatrics (No. 5), geriatrics (No. 7), internal medicine (No. 7) and drug and alcohol abuse (No. 9) are also ranked among the very best in the nation.

Started in 1971, WWAMI is recognized today both nationally and internationally as a model program for training primary care physicians and other health professionals in the most cost-effective manner. Between 1971 and 2013, over 3,000 WWAMI medical students have received clinical training in central and eastern Washington through the WWAMI program. Next Generation WWAMI will build on this internationally renowned model and prepare an even larger number of the future leaders of our healthcare programs over the coming years.

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Contact: Norm Arkans, associate vice president for Media Relations and Communications, at 206-543-2560 or arkans@uw.edu.

In June 2011 Dr. Alisa Hideg was a 42-year-old mother and family physician in the prime of her career practicing at Group Health in Spokane when she was diagnosed with estrogen and progesterone receptor negative/HER 2 positive breast cancer.

Breast cancer in young, premenopausal women is usually aggressive. So even after chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, and radiation, with her cancer in remission, Hideg wasn鈥檛 ready to take it easy. Both the type of breast cancer and the fact that it happened at a young age made her chances of relapse higher. This knowledge led her to experimental trials, and to the UW鈥檚 Tumor Vaccine Group.

Hideg found the 91探花Tumor Vaccine Group on the National Institutes of Health clinical trials website, ClinicalTrials.gov. She had heard about a trial at the University of Pennsylvania鈥檚 Perelmen School of Medicine, where the use of gene-transfer therapy converted the patients鈥� own immune cells into weapons aimed at cancerous tumors. All 12 patients had advanced stage leukemia; nine of the 12 responded positively to the treatment, and two of the first three patients treated have been in remission for two full years. 聽The Perlelmen results encouraged her to seek out a 91探花study to see if she qualified.

The 91探花Tumor Vaccine Group currently offers clinical trials for patients with breast, ovarian or colon cancer. Hideg is in a very desirable , and being approved to participate wasn鈥檛 easy. The goal of the clinical trial is to allow the patient to make and keep enough antibodies to quash any future HER-2 expressing breast cancer.

Dr. Nora Disis, 91探花professor of medicine and principal investigator of the study, explains how the vaccine may work.

鈥淭he vaccine is designed to stimulate a particular cell of the immune system, the T cell, to recognize the HER2 protein (that causes cancer),” Disis said. “If effective immunity is generated, the T cell activated by the vaccine should be able to hunt out tumor cells wherever they may be and destroy them.聽 This particular study is testing the use of an immune stimulator, ampligen, which may be able to activate the T cells more effectively than other agents we have used before.鈥�

Last month, Hideg received a vaccine dose at 91探花Medical Center. The process is gentle 鈥� a series of four small injections that make a little grid of dots on the upper arm 鈥� but the body鈥檚 response can be angry. Hideg experienced flu-like symptoms after the first visit. The reaction 聽may actually be a promising sign that her body is responding to the vaccine.

She鈥檚 positive and funny in the face of serious medicine. She tweets pictures of her experience to a network of fans and writes about her cancer in Spokane鈥檚 daily newspaper, the Spokesman-Review. In addition to being a doctor, patient and full-time mother, Hideg recently went through a series of intense interviews to add 鈥渢eacher鈥� to her resume. She has become a clinical faculty member to teach second-year 91探花medical students at the Spokane WWAMI site. 聽WWAMI is a regionalized medical education program that covers Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho.

鈥淭eaching has always been a part of my clinical practice,” Hideg said. “I have taught medical students, residents and others in my clinic since I finished my own training. This experience has reminded me how important teaching can be and how much I enjoy passing on what I have learned as a physician, a parent, and as a patient. Whether the vaccine is effective for me or not, I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the trial and help move the science forward. I believe in the potential of vaccine therapy for cancer and perhaps for other diseases also and I want a future with more options for my daughter and for others.”

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