UW News

January 7, 1999

Great Falls, Mont., and Pocatello, Idaho, to be honored for 25 years as UW School of Medicine training sites in children’s health care

The University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine pediatric training units in Great Falls, Mont., and Pocatello, Idaho, will be honored next week for more than a quarter century of teaching UW medical students and pediatric residents about children’s health care.
The Great Falls and Pocatello pediatric sites are part of the UW School of Medicine’s regionalized medical education program, known as WWAMI, an acronym for the participating states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. The program allows medical students and residents to train in communities away from an urban university medical center and encourages these future physicians to consider practices in mid-size or small towns.
Great Falls and Pocatello were the first pediatric training sites for the WWAMI Program. Pediatricians and other health professionals in both cities teach the required third-year clerkship (clinical training course) in pediatrics as well as elective courses for fourth-year medical students seeking more experience in pediatrics. The Pocatello site also trains residents — recent M.D. graduates who plan to practice pediatrics.
Pediatrician Dr. Roger W. Boe is the founder of the Pocatello pediatric training site for the UW School of Medicine, and was the first coordinator of the Pocatello pediatric clerkship. Eight Pocatello pediatricians serve on the clinical faculty for the clerkship, and the coordinator position is rotated among them. The current coordinator is Dr. Lloyd Jensen.
Pediatrician Dr. John Curtis was the first coordinator of the Great Falls pediatric training site, which is now under the direction of pediatrician Dr. Nora C. Gerrity. More than 10 Great Falls pediatricians are on the clinical faculty for the clerkship.
“The community pediatric medical education provided in Pocatello and Great Falls has been a model for development of similar programs elsewhere in the country,” said Dr. Thomas W. Pendergrass, professor of pediatrics and associate chair for educational affairs in the UW Department of Pediatrics. “The leadership and commitment of the Great Falls and Pocatello pediatricians over the past 25 years have been extraordinary. Their legacy is the critical and formative training of more than 450 medical students and 150 pediatric residents. Each has become a better physician through interaction with faculty in Pocatello and Great Falls.”
Among the topics the site faculty cover with their medical students is the examination of newborns, children and adolescents. The medical students help with wellness care, and see how pediatricians anticipate and manage problems with growth and development or behavior and learning. The students also participate in the care of children and teens with acute or chronic illnesses, and may care for infants in the hospital newborn units or participate in specialty clinics in such areas as birth defects, cystic fibrosis, bone and joint diseases or heart disease.
Pediatric residents in Pocatello obtain advanced instruction and experience in all of these areas, and take greater responsibility in the care of patients, under the supervision of the clinical faculty.
In addition to working with health-care professionals in their clinics or offices, students and residents train at nearby hospitals. Medical students in Great Falls train at Montana Deaconess and Columbus Hospital, and those in Pocatello train at the Bannock Regional Medical Center and Pocatello Regional Medical Center. Medical students and residents also visit local agencies or groups to find out about resources for children with special needs. The Montana School for the Deaf and Blind, public school special education teachers, committees that work on issues of child abuse and sexual abuse, the Head Start Program, and others have all participated in informing medical students and residents about children’s services.
Leaders from the UW Department of Pediatrics and the UW medical school’s WWAMI Program will visit Great Falls and Pocatello Jan. 11 and 12, respectively, for presentations recognizing the contributions of the clinical faculty to the education of new physicians.