Share Your Enthusiasm
Someday you’ll have to replace yourself. There are many ways to share your enthusiasm that don’t involve having a student seeing patients with you. Please send us your contact information and tell us in which ways you could make yourself available to help grow future doctors. We can be contacted at askuwsom@uw.edu
Here are a few ideas:
- Answer emails or return phone calls to students who have questions about your specialty and type of practice.
- Take a pre-med student or a medical school applicant to lunch or dinner and talk about what it is like being a doctor. If your background is under-represented in medicine, meeting you can be especially inspiring for pre-medical students when they realize that their dreams can come true. You can also introduce them to what is going on with minority health professionals in the local community. (If you are especially interested in meeting students from underrepresented minorities in medicine, contact Victoria Gardner, Director, Office of Multicultural Affairs at vg@uw.edu.).
- Provide overnight lodging for applicants who come from out of town to interview for UW School of Medicine. Interviews are held in Anchorage, Boise, Laramie, Seattle and Spokane.
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Provide Learning Opportunities
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The Shadow Knows
Like many medical schools across the country, the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) wants to make sure that applicants are making an informed decision before they spend their time and money to apply and to attend medical school. One of the common pieces missing in applications is shadowing experiences, particularly experiences that are congruent with the applicant’s ultimate career goal. Shadowing provides prospective physicians with the opportunity to witness first hand both the joys and frustrations of practicing medicine. They get to see how we handle delivering bad news or dealing with recalcitrant patients. They develop a more realistic understanding of what medicine can and can’t do.
You can decide how much time and how often you are willing to be shadowed. HIPPA is not a barrier; the students can be trained briefly by your office staff and then sign a form saying they understand that what they see and hear stays in the office. Download the form: "Application and Agreement for Shadowing and/or Observation".
The Washington Academy of Family Physicians provides opportunities through their website for students to request a mentor and be matched to a Family Medicine physician in the state of Washington. We are trying to broaden the resources available to applicants by compiling a list of physicians in a variety of specialties and locations who are willing to have students watch them as they care for patients. If you are willing to have pre-med students “job shadow” you for a day, or a few hours per week or month, please contact Carol C. Teitz, MD, Associate Dean for Admissions at UWSOM. Some of the regional AHECs (Area Health Education Centers) also match prospective medical students with physicians for mentoring and/or shadowing.
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Working with UDOC/SMDEP
The Office of Multicultural Affairs at the UW SOM provides free summer enrichment programs for high school and college students who are interested in pursuing medicine or dentistry. These include the following.
- U-DOC High School Program: teaches math, and chemistry and study skills and is a 4- week program for high school students.
- The National High School Student Summer Research Apprentice Program (NHSSSRAP): sponsored by the NIH/NIDDK/Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science program brings high school students here to the UWSOM for an 8-week research experience with a mentor.
- Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP):
(sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) is for freshman and sophomore college students and includes specific tracks such as biology and physics, or chemistry, study skill development, and hands-on exposure to practical medical skills. UW is one of 12 sites across the US that runs a SMDEP. As part of the program, the students spend up to four days shadowing a physician or dentist and also attend medical screening clinics at migrant farmworker camps in Mt. Vernon, WA. Between the years of 1989-2010, the UWSOM site of SMDEP has had 2,488 participants, including 2021 underrepresented minorities. 861 have matriculated into medical school, 143 of them to the UWSOM.
If you have questions or are interested in either of these programs, please contact Victoria Gardner, Director, Office of Multicultural Affairs at vg@u.washington.edu or at 206.685.2489.
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Participate in Panel Discussions
Panels on careers in medicine are coordinated for pre-medical students by Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED), the pre-medical honor society with chapters on many campuses in the WWAMI region. If there is no chapter in the college near you, consider helping the college start one. Panels are also coordinated for current medical students by the Medical Student Association and the Student Affairs Office at the Seattle site of the University of Washington School of Medicine and by the respective WWAMI Assistant Deans’ offices at the Spokane, Pullman, Anchorage, Bozeman, Laramie, and Boise sites.
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Opportunities for Physician Involvement
- UW Medicine Alumni Association A nonprofit, non-dues organization which cultivates unity among alumni of the School of Medicine. If you graduated from the UWSOM, or one of its residency programs, check out the UW Medicine Alumni Association for a variety of ways to help prospective and current medical students. You can also contact them at 206.685.1875 or toll free 1.866.633.2586 or medalum@u.washington.edu for questions or more information.
- University of Washington Alumni Association (UWAA): Offers opportunities for membership benefits and activities, learning, networking and news. Produces Viewpoints (available online), a magazine published in partnership with the diversity community of the UW, Columns Magazine, and UW Newslinks.
- SAID (Student-Alumni Informational Dinners): These dinners occur three times a year and match medical students interested in a given specialty with UW School of Medicine alumni who practice in that specialty.
- HOST (Help Our Students Travel): The HOST Program has helped hundreds of UW's fourth-year medical students find a friendly home while traveling for their residency interviews.
- Health Sciences/UW Medicine Tour Guide: Guide eager high school students and future health care professionals through the Warren G. Magnuson Health Sciences Center and the UW Medical Center.
Community Health Advancement Program (CHAP): Work in a volunteer clinic alongside medical students and faculty. - Al-Shifa Clinic: Al-Shifa is a student-run clinic for underserved, predominantly immigrant communities.
- Aloha Inn: The Aloha Inn provides transitional housing for 66 formerly homeless residents and has an inter-professional student-run free clinic. Also see Students In The Community (SITC).
- Introduction to Clinical Medicine course. Help teach physical exam, or evaluate medical students on their ability to perform physical exams and do case presentations. Please contact Julie Calcavecchia for more information.
- Observed Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs). Observe and evaluate 2nd and 4th year medical students on their ability to perform basic clinical skills (physical exams, medical interviewing, clinical reasoning). Testing dates occur four times a year in winter, spring and summer. Contact Donna Ambrozy if you are interested.
- Global Health Group: Help promote international clinical and research experiences for medical students.
- Preceptorships: Medical students are required to complete one preceptorship in either their first or second year of medical school. A preceptorship consists of a minimum of eight four-hour sessions during which the student spends time with a physician in a clinic. You must be a member of the clinical faculty to be a preceptor.
- Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program (R/UOP): The Rural/Underserved opportunities Program (R/UOP) is a four-week, elective immersion experience in community medicine for students between their first and second years of medical school. Students work side-by-side with local physicians in the WWAMI region providing health care to underserved populations.
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