August 9, 1999
University of Washington School of Medicine’s family medicine clerkship sites in Wyoming welcome their first students
The University of Washington School of Medicine’s family medicine teaching sites in Buffalo, Wyo., and Powell, Wyo., will welcome their first clerkship students Aug. 16. A clerkship is a formal, clinical training course for advanced medical students.
Third-year medical student Heidi Ambrose, of Bellingham, Wash., has been assigned to the Buffalo site. Jason Tyler Stansill, of Thermopolis, Wyo., also a third-year student, will take the Powell clerkship. They will be in town until Sept. 24.
The clerkship coordinators are family physicians Dr. Mark Wurzel of Powell and Dr. Larry Kirven of Buffalo. Other physicians and health professionals in both towns will assist in teaching the clinical course. Kirven practices at the Family Medical Clinic and at Johnson County Health Care Center. Wurzel, who has his own practice, is on the Powell Hospital medical staff. Wurzel and Kirven will now hold clinical faculty appointments at the University of Washington medical school.
Kirven and Wurzel served this summer and in the past as Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program (R/UOP) preceptors for the University of Washington School of Medicine. R/UOP is a voluntary introduction to small-town or inner-city practice for beginning medical students and encourages them to consider careers serving populations that lack adequate health care.
In contrast, the family medicine clerkship is a required course. During the six-week clerkship, students learn a primary-care approach to diagnosing and managing common medical problems while gaining an understanding of the family physician’s role in the health-care system. The students train in a variety of settings: doctors’ offices, rural hospitals, home visits, nursing care facilities and mental health agencies. The two Wyoming towns join 24 other Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho locations where the family medicine clerkship requirement is offered.
Dr. Tom Greer, associate professor of family medicine and a family physician at University of Washington Medical Center, directs the medical student education section of the University of Washington’s Department of Family Medicine, which oversees all the family medicine teaching sites in the five-state region.
Largely because of the excellent, realistic education in family practice that medical students receive at these community sites, the University of Washington’s teaching program in family medicine has been ranked No. 1 in the nation for the past six years in U.S. News & World Report’s reputational surveys. In addition, the University of Washington School of Medicine consistently ranks as the nation’s No. 1 primary-care medical school.
The new Wyoming clerkships are part of the WWAMI regional medical education program, a partnership among the states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho –the WWAMI states– to train physicians for areas of need.
The Wyoming WWAMI Program, directed by Dr. Sylvia Moore, assistant dean of the University of Washington School of Medicine, also has an obstetrics/gynecology clerkship site in Rock Springs, internal medicine clerkship sites in Sheridan and Jackson, and a WWAMI Rural Integrated Training Experience (WRITE) site in Thermopolis, where medical students can train for six months. This summer the Wyoming WWAMI program placed its 1999 R/UOP participants in Afton, Buffalo, Douglas, Gillette, Green River, Newcastle, Powell, Sheridan and Worland. First-year medical school classes are held at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, and the second-year courses are taught in Seattle at the University of Washington.
