WWAMI Faculty Newsletter
News & Information from the University of Washington School of Medicine
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A Message from Dr. Suzanne Allen
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Welcome to a new academic year!
We always look forward to the start of a new school year, but the 2021/22 academic year has certainly been one of the most highly anticipated. We have transitioned back to in-person and hybrid learning across the WWAMI Foundations sites, and I want to thank all of the wonderful staff and faculty who have been working to prepare shared spaces for a safe return for our students. Across the region, our University and clinical partners have established guidelines around return to the classroom/clinical environment. In Seattle, we are adhering to the University of Washington’s reopening guidelines and vaccination requirements. The safety of our medical students remains our number one priority.
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Aside from COVID-19 updates, I would like to share a few additional announcements.
In August we submitted 16 status and end-of-phase reports to the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). These status reports rely significantly on student satisfaction ratings with the administration, curriculum, measures to mitigate mistreatment, and quality of student services. The satisfaction ratings are collected from internal curricular end-of-phase surveys and the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) Graduation Questionnaire. Thank you to everyone who was involved in helping to compile the reports. There is a link to review the 2021 End-of-Patient Care Phase and End-of-Explore & Focus Phase reports in the Educational Quality Improvement section of this newsletter.
The School of Medicine is continuing its work with the Office of Healthcare Equity to become a more inclusive and anti-racist institution. Please continue using the UW Medicine Bias Reporting tool; it is designed to allow all members of our community to report concerns in our work and learning environments. Additionally, we will soon be working with a consultant team, Infinite Impact, to bring restorative justice practices to the School of Medicine. To learn more about their work, view this Infinite Impact Restorative Justice Video.
We look forward to a productive year. Thank you in advance for your flexibility, your patience, and your help in educating the next generation of physicians.
Please continue to stay safe and healthy!
Suzanne Allen, M.D., M.P.H.
Vice Dean for Academic, Rural & Regional Affairs
University of Washington School of Medicine
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In this Newsletter:
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- Announcements
- Admissions
- Advancement
- Continuing Medical Education (CME)
- Educational Quality Improvement (EQI)
- Learning Environment
- Regional Affairs
- Rural Programs
- Service Learning
- WWAMI Roundup
- Important Links
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Announcements
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Department of Family Medicine Awards 2021
The UW Department of Family Medicine has announced winners of its inaugural Department of Family Medicine Awards. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the department, 50 individuals and teams were selected in the following award categories:
- Clinical Excellence
- Educational Excellence
- Leadership Excellence
- Research Excellence
- Staff Excellence
- Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI)
- Chair Awards
Family Medicine attracts exceptional faculty and staff who have made remarkable contributions to the department, specialty, and communities over these past 50 years. To find out who the winners are, please visit the 2021 Awardees page on the Department of Family Medicine website.
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Staff Updates
Please join us in welcoming Nathalie Hovatta who has joined Joanne Estacio-Deckard and Cliff Kelly on the Counseling and Wellness team. She will provide counseling services to our medical students and assist with running medical student wellness programs. Nathalie joins us from Utah, where she previously provided counseling services at Intermountain Healthcare and the University of Utah.
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Nick Cheung will be joining Student Affairs as Assistant Director on October 11. Prior to working in the UWSOM curriculum unit as the Curriculum Systems Management (Elentra) Manager, Nick worked at UC Irvine School of Medicine in a number of capacities, including registration and scheduling, MSPEs, residency application/SOAP process, leaves and expansions, LCME accreditation, to name a few. Welcome to Student Affairs Nick!
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Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) Study: Ending Police Violence in America
The burden of fatal police violence is an urgent public health crisis in the US. Mounting evidence shows that deaths at the hands of the police disproportionately impact people of certain races and ethnicities, pointing to systemic racism in policing. Recent high-profile killings by police in the US have prompted calls for more extensive and public data reporting on police violence. IHME's recent study examines the presence and extent of under-reporting of police violence in US Government-run vital registration data, offers a method for correcting under-reporting in these datasets, and presents revised estimates of deaths due to police violence in the US.
Edwin Lindo, JD, assistant dean for social and health justice at UWSOM, has actively contributed to this study. Read the full paper in The Lancet here.
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Yes, Soup for You!
As we enter the colder months still physically distanced, sharing favorite soup recipes can bring us closer together. From timeless staples passed down for generations to newly discovered concoctions, read the culinary creations of your fellow UW Medicine colleagues for good-tasting inspiration this season.
And please share your own recipes with the community - submit one of your favorites here!
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Admissions
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Admissions Update
The letter is also posted on the Admissions Instagram & Facebook accounts; you will find the most up-to-date Admissions information on the website.
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SAID Program
The UW School of Medicine Alumni Association‘s SAID (Student-Alumni Informational Discussions) program is back!
Through SAID, alumni host a small group of two to six students over Zoom or in person (pending local and School of Medicine guidelines) for lively conversations about professional practice, residency, work-life balance and whatever else is on students’ minds. Discussions are offered from October to December.
If you’re an alum interested in participating, please contact the alumni office at medalum@uw.edu, or check out the Alumni Association website at https://uwmedalumni.org/said/. Registration is now open, so please feel free to forward this information to any alumni who would enjoy connecting with students!
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UW School of Medicine Distinguished Alumni Awards
Nominations for the 2022 UW School of Medicine Distinguished Alumni Awards are now open! Now is the time to honor the colleagues and classmates who inspire you – by nominating them for one of four awards: the Distinguished Alumnus/Alumna Award, the Alumni Humanitarian Award, the Alumni Service Award and the Alumni Early Achievement Award.
For inspiration, learn more about our 2021 recipients (including Dr. Erika Goldstein, pictured at right) by visiting the Alumni Association website at https://uwmedalumni.org/alumni-awards/. You’ll also find details about the awards criteria as well as a list of all past recipients.
Nominations are due by Friday, December 31, 2021. Please contact the alumni office at medalum@uw.edu with questions.
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Continuing Medical Education (CME)
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Upcoming CME Courses
We are more than halfway through 2021 and hope you have joined us virtually at a UW CME offering. If you haven’t, or still need to get your CME credits for the year, check out the remaining 2021 programs. With topics ranging from updates for family medicine and primary care providers to managing and treating chronic pain, to diabetes management through telemedicine, and guidelines and advances for patients with solid tumors and hematologic disorders, we have your educational needs covered. Also, join our mailing list to be the first to hear about upcoming offerings--there are some great programs in the pipeline that you will not want to miss.
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Educational Quality Improvement (EQI)
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Educational Quality Improvement (EQI) – Status Reports & End-of-Phase Reports
LCME Status Reports
In August 2021, we submitted 16 status reports to the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). These status reports rely significantly on student satisfaction ratings with the administration, curriculum, measures to mitigate mistreatment, and quality of student services. The satisfaction ratings are collected from internal curricular end-of-phase surveys and the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) Graduation Questionnaire.
Many of you are integral to the process of implementing continuous quality improvement initiatives and have assisted in the development of these status reports. We thank you for your efforts! The school anticipates a response back from the LCME this fall.
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End-of-Patient Care and End-of-Explore & Focus Phase Reports
Both cohorts indicated high satisfaction with the overall quality of their phase. There were increases in satisfaction of student services including career advising, counseling services, and financial aid services. While both cohorts rated the learning environment as supportive, their concerns persist as in past years, regarding the comfort of the learning environment for underrepresented and LGBTQ students.
At the end of this year, EQI will release a consolidated report contrasting key findings from internal and external surveys. We will also release the AAMC GQ results in September.
Contact eqi@uw.edu if you have any questions about the LCME status reports or recent Clinical Phase reports.
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Regional Affairs
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Clinical and Affiliate Faculty Promotions
Recommendations for promotion of the clinical and affiliate faculty members for all departments listed here have been reviewed and approved by the Provost’s Office and were effective as of July 1, 2021.
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Rural Programs
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New WRITE Program Educator – Robin Scott
We’d like to share with you the newest member of the Office of Rural Programs team – Robin Scott. Robin’s main focus will be planning, organizing and the implementation of WRITE (WWAMI Rural Integrated Training Experience) and assisting with the Olympia LIC (Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship) program, among other tasks.
Robin comes to us with more than 10 years of experience in healthcare, starting in pediatrics then sports medicine, family medicine, and finally cardiology; prior to coming to UWSOM in the summer of 2020.
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He is a Double Dawg having received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the UW. Robin has a keen interest in education and healthcare and working with traditionally underserved populations.
Robin is based at the UW campus in Seattle and is reachable via email at rgree3@uw.edu.
Welcome aboard, Robin!
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Robin (right) with his husband Chuck (left) on their wedding day in January 2021.
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New Faces of Service Learning
The Service Learning program is excited to announce two new additions to our leadership team.
Wyoming Service Learning Champion
Dr. Tracey Haas will serve in the role of Service Learning Champion in Wyoming. Dr. Haas will be taking over for Marivern Easton who has overseen the expansion of programming in Laramie over the past four years.
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“Connecting with the community in a spirit of service helps us keep our minds and hearts aligned while on the journey to become the best and happiest doctors we can be. Students and mentors alike benefit from these experiences, and my hope is that these medical school endeavors will influence our students' future practices and communities.”
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Spokane Service Learning Champion
Dr. John McCarthy will be joining Carol Weigand in Spokane to support students in their community engagement projects. Dr. Bill Sayers, a strong advocate for Service Learning, formerly held this position.
“The most fulfilling work I do is working with the disenfranchised. I am excited to be returning to a role with Service Learning and hope that all WWAMI students can value this work. Service helps me to appreciate the honor and privilege of being a physician.”
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WWAMI Spokane Faculty Honored by Spokane Journal of Business
Congratulations to Spokane WWAMI faculty Jessica Lundgren, DO for receiving the Rising Star Award!
Each year the Spokane Journal of Business honors 10 of the Inland Northwest's best and brightest individuals under age 40 in anticipation of their ability as future leaders in Spokane. Dr. Lundgren is one of the superb clinical faculty at the Internal Medicine Residency Spokane and teaches both residents and our UW medical students not only general internal medicine, but also provides and teaches the curriculum for the residents' HIV clinic. She was honored along with the other awardees at a banquet last month. A big thank you to Dr. Lundgren for teaching our UW medical students!
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Alaska WWAMI Student's Hands-on Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program Experience
This past August, Madelyn Boslough (pictured below in plaid shirt), Alaska WWAMI E20, had the time of her life experiencing first-hand rural medicine in her Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program (RUOP) community of Naknek, Alaska. Madelyn spent four weeks in her immersive clinical experience in bush Alaska, under the guidance of Dr. Erica Foster (pictured below in yellow shirt), Alaska WWAMI E12.
This summer experience was especially poignant for Dr. Foster. Foster grew up in Naknek, graduated from the UWSOM AK WWAMI program in 2016 and just returned home to practice after completing her Family Medicine OB Fellowship at Swedish First Hill in Seattle. Dr. Foster, reflecting on her own RUOP experience in medical school and how exciting it was to be immersed in clinical medicine as a team member for the first time, proved to be a truly outstanding preceptor and role model for Madelyn.
As she so aptly put it, “I love WWAMI. It’s in my blood.”
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Welcome to the WWAMILY - New Learning Specialist
The Montana Learning Specialist, Jackie Wilson, retired in June 2021. We wish Jackie well as she finds new adventures in retirement.
We have recently hired Jackie's replacement, Claire Mitchell, PhD (pictured to the right).
Dr. Mitchell has a PhD in Higher Ed and Adult Learning from the University of Virginia, and moved to Bozeman recently from Charlottesville. She has been working on research projects remotely, including ones on medical student success, and she will continue doing grant-funded research in her non-WWAMI time. Join us in welcoming Dr. Mitchell to the Montana WWAMIly!
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Dr. Maureen Kim Lynch Retirement
In July, we wished a happy retirement to longtime WWAMI faculty member Maureen Kim Lynch, MD. Dr. Lynch most recently served as Clinical Associate Professor for the Department of Surgery at the Boise VA Medical Center. She also was Site Director for the required surgery rotation at Boise VA, and has been a member of the WWAMI faculty since 1989. Dr. Lynch has received numerous WWAMI awards, including the University of Washington Gold Humanism Award and Distinguished WWAMI Teacher of the Year. She is designated as an Idaho WWAMI Teacher Superior in Perpetuity as a ten-time recipient of the Idaho WWAMI Excellence in Teaching Award, nominated by WWAMI medical students.
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Idaho TRUST Scholars
Join us in welcoming our 2021 Idaho TRUST Scholars (pictured below):
- Jake Bruner - Orofino
- Eddy Ortega - Nampa
- Rhett Schlader - Hailey
- Kainoa Quia-Park - Moscow
- Luke LaMue - McCall
- Adolfo Carmona - Jerome
- Tanner Holyoak - Sandpoint
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Important Links
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