The University of Washington (UW) and Harvard University were the only two medical schools in the nation to rank No.1 in one of two medical school categories and in the top 7 in the other. They are regarded for excellence in teaching primary-care to medical students and as high-powered research institutions in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Graduate Schools rankings, released today. The University of California San Francisco ranked in the top seven in both categories, the only other school to do so.
For the 15th consecutive year, the UW medical school was ranked as the No. 1 medical school in the United States for training medical students in primary care. The UW School of Medicine was second only to Harvard among all medical schools, and the first among public medical schools, in the dollar amount of federal research grants in fiscal year 2007 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). U.S. News reports the UW Medicine faculty received $579.7 million in NIH grants in fiscal year 2007.
"Very few medical schools in the nation excel both in biomedical research and in preparing students for primary-care careers," said Dr. Paul G. Ramsey, CEO of UW Medicine and dean of the UW School of Medicine. "Our faculty and staff are superb individuals who are committed to excellence in these critically important areas. It is gratifying to witness their recognition among medical schools nationally, but, more than that, the impact of their work for the nation and the world."
The UW medical school tries to encourage medical students to consider careers working with rural and medically underserved populations through community-based clinical training programs at more than 100 sites across Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho, the five states joined in the WWAMI program of regionalized medical education.
Because of this approach, the UW medical school training programs in family medicine and in rural medicine both were ranked No. 1 in the nation for the 17th consecutive year. The UW medical school was the only medical school to be ranked in the top 10 in all eight teaching specialties rated by U.S. News through a reputation survey of the nation's medical school deans and senior faculty. In addition to top rankings in family medicine and rural health, the UW medical school ranked fourth in teaching medical students about AIDS, sixth in internal medicine, seventh in geriatrics and in women's health, tied at seventh in pediatrics with Washington University in St. Louis, and eighth in teaching about drug and alcohol abuses.
The UW medical school's graduate program in occupational therapy in its Department of Rehabilitation Medicine tied for No. 9 with New York University and the University of Pittsburgh.
The UW graduate program in biomedical/bioengineering, jointly run by the UW College of Engineering and the UW School of Medicine, ranked No. 5.
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