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. During their four-week rotation, students live in rural or urban underserved communities throughout Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho (also known as WWAMI, the five-state region served by the School of Medicine). They work side-by-side with local physicians, providing health care to underserved populations. This program provides students with an early exposure to the challenges and rewards of practicing primary care medicine in a rural or urban underserved setting and an opportunity to learn how community health-care systems function. We are fortunate that our students are supported by the contributors and funds listed below.
Liu Bie Ju Endowed Fellowship for Excellence in Women’s Health
R/UOP (the Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program) allows approximately 100 medical students to spend a month immersing themselves in the life of a medical practice in an underserved community in the summer between their first and second years at the UW School of Medicine. Approximately half of these students — the students who will benefit from this fellowship — also use the rotation as an opportunity to complete their graduation requirement for a community medicine project, the Independent Investigative Inquiry (III). Many students select topics that concern the health of rural women, such as breast-cancer screening, emergency contraception, or osteoporosis prevention.
These students have very limited resources to complete their projects: to distribute brochures and pamphlets, for instance, or to create enduring materials to use at health fairs or community talks. This endowment will augment students’ ability to carry out their projects.
This fellowship is named after Madame Liu Bie Ju, a prominent civic leader and philanthropist in Hong Kong, and beloved grandmother to Dr. Emily Yen Wong, a faculty member at UW Medicine. Madame Liu Bie Ju comes from a strong industrialist tradition; she spent many years living and working in rural China. Health-care services were often not available to her family, particularly during wartime, resulting in tremendous personal tragedy and sacrifice.
Madame Liu Bie Ju’s life has been exemplified by devotion to family, commitment to service, and compassion for the underprivileged. Her endowment recognizes the importance of women’s health as a critical contribution to the health of families and communities, particularly rural communities.
William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fellowship
This endowment was established by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation in 2005 to provide financial assistance to medical students who participate in the R/UOP (Rural/Urban Opportunities Program) and WRITE (WWAMI Rural Integrated Training Experience) programs in the School of Medicine. In creating the fellowship, the Hearst Foundation intends to help the School of Medicine increase the number of students who are trained and interested in meeting the rural health-care needs of the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho) region.
The William Randolph Hearst Foundation is one of two foundations (the other being The Hearst Foundation) created by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. The William Randolph Hearst Foundation was originally established in 1948 as the California Charities Foundation until its name was changed in 1951 upon the death of Mr. Hearst.
Rosenblatt Community Medicine Endowed Award Fund
This endowment was established in 2007 by Roger A. Rosenblatt, M.D., MPH, and his wife, Fernne S. Rosenblatt, with matching support from the University of Washington’s Faculty-Staff-Retiree Campaign for Students. The fund recognizes and supports the efforts of students who are undertaking an Independent Investigative Inquiry (III) or other independent community medicine project while participating in the R/UOP, CHAP, or IHOP programs, or any other program or track within the UW School of Medicine that includes a community medicine component and a student-led project. Distributions from the endowment will be used to provide awards to these students.
Dr. Rosenblatt has been a faculty member at the UW School of Medicine for over 30 years. He was the first resident in family medicine at the University of Washington and was intimately involved with the development of the WWAMI program, both as a resident and as a faculty member.
Dr. Rosenblatt helped start the National Health Service Corps, a program of the Public Health Service that brings health professionals to under-served communities. His wife, Fernne, also has spent much of her life working to improve the quality of life in urban and rural communities. In fact, Roger and Fernne met while they were both working to establish new medical practices in underserved communities. They have continued to work together on a variety of projects, including education of rural youth and the creation of a land trust in Eastern Washington. In addition, Fernne Rosenblatt has worked for the last 10 years to improve educational opportunities for rural youth in rural Okanogan County, an activity which hopefully will better prepare rural youth for future health-care careers.
After pursuing other projects, Dr. Rosenblatt returned to the School of Medicine in 1977, and served as the director of the Family Medicine Clerkship. He then went on to establish the research section in the Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Rosenblatt created the WWAMI Rural Health Research center in 1985, and has served as vice chair — and several times as acting chair — of the Department of Family Medicine for over two decades. For the last 10 years, Dr. Rosenblatt has served as director of the R/UOP program, and in that role he developed the community medicine option (also known as the III-selective 3) for medical students. This program is the focus of this award.
Just as Dr. and Mrs. Rosenblatt have focused on improving the availability and quality of health services for disadvantaged groups, the purpose of this award is to recognize students who also make an exemplary contribution to this goal.