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Welcome To The World Of WWAMI!
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This page has been designed by past WWAMI students to provide information for those who are interested in being a medical student through the University of Washington School of Medicine's WWAMI Medical Education Program or those have
already been accepted. Information throughout this website is provided for you by past WWAMI students so that you
may learn more about what it is really like to be a medical student on the Palouse. WWAMI students have kept the
tradition of passing on tidbits of helpful hints to new students for several years.
Starting in 1991 the WWAMI class began printing the WWAMI Book to provide incoming students with a compilation of essential pearls
of WWAMI wisdom. The book included everything from good restaurants and recreation to professor reviews and comic book
sketches. As each year passed, the WWAMIs would add more information to the book. The E-04 WWAMI class thought a website would serve as a better medium to
provide pearls of wisdom to prospective students. The highlights of the WWAMI Medical Education Program are included below, but for more details please use the links on the left.
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The WSU/UI WWAMI program has a lot of benefits when compared with the
Seattle program. First and foremost, the small class size
offers much more opportunity to interact with the faculty. Your professors
not only know you by name, test scores, and favorite squeaky classroom seat,
they know where you live and will give you their home phone numbers for those
pre-exam intellectual crises. WSU/UI WWAMI's also have impressive access to
local physicians through preceptorships, weekly opportunities for students to
spend at least four hours working side-by-side with a local doctor. Since WSU/UI WWAMI's are the only medical
students in the area, the community physicians are delighted to teach, and
offer many opportunities for observing and participating in patient care.
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Life in the Moscow/Pullman area offers many perks for
the first year medical student. Living in the Palouse is much cheaper than
living in
Seattle and there are no traffic hassles to contend with on
the way to class. Because everyone lives nearby, social gatherings and study
groups become very easy to organize. Both UI and WSU have enormous, convenient
student recreation centers and the local bike trails and hiking areas offer
scenic outdoor recreation. Also, for those who dislike the Seattle
rain, being a WSU/UI WWAMI will give you a year of nearly
continuous sunshine! Perfect for playing Frisbee during class breaks.
As with anything, there are some adjustments involved
in moving to Moscow/Pullman for your first year. For students from a larger
city, the Moscow/Pullman region can feel slow-paced, confining, or boring at
times. For others, this may prove conducive to studying. The majority of
students would recommend living in Moscow the atmosphere is much more welcoming.
The small class size can be confining at timesómost
students will not be accustomed to sitting next to the same person for 6 hours.
Also, as wonderful as it is to know the faculty so well, it can be a shock to
those who are use to the anonymity of 400-student undergraduate lectures.
However, it is nice when someone brings cookies to class that their mom sent in
the mail and when the whole class sings happy birthday for one of their
members.
In general, the unique educational opportunities of
the WWAMI program outweigh the problems or frustrations. It may be a pain to
move for just a year, but it may also be the best choice for you as a student.
The most rewarding benefit of the Palouse is the peaceful environment; it is a
great way to ease your way into medical school. We hope this website will offer
some helpful hints, advice, and lessons learned from the previous students.
Enjoy!
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History of the WWAMI Program:
Each fall 20 Washington and 20 Idaho students start their medical education together at the first year WWAMI site at WSU/UI.
The WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) program began as an experiment at WSU in 1972, the same time that the program was developed in
Moscow, Idaho; Bozeman, Montana; and Fairbanks (now Anchorage), Alaska. Wyoming joined the program in 1996.
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The perceived need for a medical education program in the eastern part of Washington led to the creation of the Pullman program.
The most efficient and least expensive approach was to establish an outreach department of the University of Washington Medical School,
rather than establishing a separate medical school in Spokane.
Outreach projects directed at rural underserved areas are best served by having students in the service region.
Thus, enhancing exposure to rural primary care medicine has been a major benefit of having the WWAMI program at WSU.
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Students are admitted to the WSU WWAMI program either as volunteers or through the lottery system.
This system, operated by the Office of Student Affairs at UWSOM, randomly selects students who will spend their first year in Pullman.
Those that 'win' the lottery are affectionately known as being 'WWAMIed'.
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The WWAMI program started in Idaho under the direction of Dr. Guy Anderson, with nine students in its 1972-3 class.
The goals of the Idaho program were first to provide access to an excellent medical education through the University of Washington WWAMI system,
and second to address the critical health care needs of Idaho, particularly in the rural regions of the state.
The WWAMI program was initially supported for five years by a federal grant, and in 1979, it became fully supported by the State of Idaho.
As the WWAMI program begins its fourth decade,
there is an even greater need for access to health care in rural areas. WWAMI is rising to this challenge by
developing a series of outreach initiatives directed at providing primary
care practitioners to those rural areas. Such activities include high school programs, undergraduate programs
and opportunities for medical students to work in rural areas.
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Enjoy These Videos From Past WWAMI Classes 