June 17, 1998
Two Missoula adult medicine physicians honored for dedication to teaching University of Washington medical students
Dr. Judith Olson and Dr. Wesley Wilson, who practice adult medicine in Missoula, Mont., have been honored by the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine for their outstanding contributions to teaching medical students at the WWAMI community clinical training unit in internal medicine in Missoula.
WWAMI is a partnership among the states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho to educate new physicians for the region. Among the training opportunities WWAMI provides is the chance for third-year medical students to take their required clinical courses, called clerkships, at several towns and cities in the five-state region. Internal medicine and obstetrics/gynecology clerkships are offered in Missoula.
Olson has been director of the WWAMI Community Clinical Unit in Internal Medicine since 1979. She will retire as site coordinator this year. This week the UW Department of Medicine presented her with a WWAMI Service Award to commend her nearly 20 years of excellent leadership of its medical student training program in Missoula and her teaching and mentoring of students. A number of UW medical alumni attribute their decision to practice general adult medicine to their fine experience training with Olson. She is on the medical staff of St. Patrick Hospital and Missoula Community Hospital, and was a physician reviewer for the Montana/Wyoming Foundation for Medical Care. In the 1970s she served as a physician for Care-Medico in Jogdjakarta, Indonesia.
Wilson, who practices internal medicine and hematology at Western Montana Clinic, will receive a UW Department of Medicine’s 1998 WWAMI Excellence in Teaching Award, given for the first time this year. Medical students and site coordinators from throughout the region nominated a number of WWAMI faculty, and four were chosen for enthusiasm and consistent dedication in the teaching of medical students and residents (physicians-in-training).
Wilson is both a clinical professor of medicine at the UW and a faculty affiliate of the University of Montana Department of Pharmacy. He is in private practice at the Western Montana Clinic and on the medical staff at St. Patrick Hospital, where he is a former chief of staff. He received both B.A. and M.D. degrees from the University of Washington. After completing his residency in internal medicine at the University of Oregon in Portland, he did a fellowship in hematology at the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, Calif.
In addition to his role in medical education, Wilson has published several research papers on cancer, diseases of the blood, childhood poisonings, and Gaucher Disease, an inherited metabolic disorder. He is an investigator in a trial to prevent Type 1 diabetes and has served on a National Institutes of Health technology assessment panel on the diagnosis and treatment of Gaucher Disease. He also prepares patient education materials for the Ask a Doctor service of the Voice of the Diabetic, produced by the National Federation of the Blind. Wilson is a fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Others receiving the first WWAMI Excellence in Teaching Internal Medicine Awards are: Dr. George Novan of the Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Dr. James Branahl of the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Boise, and Dr. Ronald Smith of The Billings Clinic in Billings, Mont. Next year the nomination field will include the UW medical school’s new teaching sites in internal medicine in Alaska and Wyoming.
Dr. Douglas Paauw, associate professor of medicine and head of medical student teaching in the UW Department of Medicine, will coordinate the award presentation in each of the four cities. A commemorative plaque will also be installed at the UW medical school’s Seattle campus to honor the WWAMI teaching award recipients.
