UW News

April 5, 2007

U.W. School of Medicine ranks first in U.S.

UW Health Sciences/UW Medicine

The UW School of Medicine again has ranked first among primary-care medical schools in the country, according to annual rankings of graduate and professional schools provided last week by U.S. News & World Report. UW is the only medical school in the nation ranked in the top 10 for all eight specialties included in the rankings.

For the 16th consecutive year, UW School of Medicine’s teaching programs in family medicine and in rural health also ranked No. 1. The school ranked fourth in teaching medical students about AIDS, sixth in internal medicine, seventh in geriatrics, eighth in pediatrics, and tenth in women’s health and in drug/alcohol abuse training. The school’s physician assistant program, MEDEX, ranked seventh in the nation.

The UW medical school ranked sixth among research schools nationally, moving ahead of Stanford with which it was last year tied for seventh. It ranked first among public medical schools and second among all medical schools in research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in fiscal year 2006.

Only Harvard Medical School had more NIH funding. By U.S. News calculations, last year the NIH awarded UW School of Medicine faculty $573.2 million in grants. “This year’s rankings strongly suggest that the UW School of Medicine is the leading public medical school in the nation,” said Dr. Paul G. Ramsey, CEO, UW Medicine, executive vice president for Medical Affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.

“We have ranked No. 1 among all medical schools in primary care for 14 consecutive years, we are the only medical school in the nation ranked in the top 10 for all eight specialties included in the rankings, and we are No. 1 in the nation among public institutions for NIH research grants. Only Harvard is ahead of us among private schools, and we are widening our lead in NIH funding over other top private medical schools, such as University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins.”

Like other medical schools across the nation, the UW School of Medicine is facing the challenge of declining student interest in primary care. The medical school is considering a number of new approaches to encourage more medical students to enter primary-care training.

“Educating primary-care physicians is a key part of our mission, and we are developing new ways to increase our effectiveness in this are,” said Dr. Thomas E. Norris, vice dean for academic affairs.