UW Medicine’s mission is to improve the health of the public by advancing medical knowledge, providing outstanding primary and specialty care to the people of the region, and preparing tomorrow’s physicians, scientists and other health professionals.
UW Medicine owns or operates Harborview Medical Center, University of Washington Medical Center, a network of seven UW Medicine Neighborhood Clinics that provide primary care, the UW School of Medicine, the physician practice UW Physicians and Airlift Northwest. In addition, UW Medicine shares in the ownership and governance of Children’s University Medical Group and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, a partnership among UW Medicine, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Children’s.
Our faculty includes five Nobel Prize winners, 33 Institute of Medicine members, 32 National Academy of Sciences members and 16 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators.
Patient Care
Our core academic medical centers, Harborview and UW Medical Center, together have about 40,000 admissions and about 850,000 outpatient and emergency room visits to the hospitals and clinics each year. As academic medical centers, we provide our patients with the latest in medical discovery, diagnoses and treatments. Our physicians treat patients, as well as conduct scientific research and teach the next generation of medical professionals.
Medic One, the international model for emergency care, was developed at Harborview Medical Center. Medic One was developed in a collaborative effort among Harborview, the Seattle Fire Department and the UW School of Medicine. The system, one of the first of its kind in the world, is the model most emulated by communities throughout the country.
Airlift Northwest, an air medical transport program, was founded by a consortium of hospitals in the Seattle area, including Harborview Medical Center, UW Medical Center and Seattle Children’s. Airlift Northwest has provided air medical transport for more than 60,000 patients since 1982.
People
- More than 16,500 employees contribute to the mission of UW Medicine.
- The School of Medicine has approximately 2,000 employed faculty members and more than 4,600 clinical faculty across the WWAMI program who teach medical students, residents, and post-doctoral fellows.
- UW Medicine has approximately 4,500 students and trainees across a broad range of undergraduate, professional, and post-graduate programs.
Education
The five-state WWAMI regional medical educational network, serving Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho, is widely considered the best academic model for the training and placing of physicians in underserved communities.
UW School of Medicine has been ranked as the No. 1 primary care medical school in the country for 16 consecutive years. In addition, UW Medicine teaching programs are ranked among the best in the country in the 2010 rankings by U.S. News & World Report.
- Family medicine (No. 1, for the 18th straight year)
- Rural medicine (No. 1, for the 18th straight year)
- AIDS
- Women’s health care
- Geriatrics
- Pediatrics
- Internal medicine
Research
UW faculty members have been responsible for many basic science and technological advances in medicine. Our faculty have been pioneers in numerous areas, including transgenic animal technology, cell replication and signal transduction research, as well as the development of medical ultrasound, renal dialysis and technology critical to protein science.
UW Medicine researchers are international leaders in genome sciences.
When the National Institutes of Health created the first three National Centers of Excellence in Genomic Sciences, the UW received two of the three awards — one in the School of Medicine and one in the College of Engineering.
Three UW Medicine faculty — Philip Green, Maynard Olson and Robert Waterston — were among eight scientists worldwide recognized by the Gairdner Foundation for their seminal contributions to the Human Genome Project.
UW Medicine faculty members are leaders in proteomics — research related to the biomolecular structure of proteins. Understanding protein complexes may lead to treatment and prevention of devastating diseases. UW scientists are studying dystrophin, a protein necessary for muscle health, in the search for muscular dystrophy treatments. Other scientists are studying the structural genomics of protozoa that are pathogens for such diseases as sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and malaria, which result in many deaths worldwide.
UW biomedical research programs have been ranked consistently among the top three schools in receipt of National Institutes of Health grant funding in U.S. News & World Report surveys.
The 2009 rankings:
- Harvard
- University of Washington
- University of Pennsylvania
UW School of Medicine research provides a significant economic benefit to the community. UW Medicine generated more than $800 million in research funds last year. A number of established and start-up biotechnology companies, including Zymogenetics and ICOS, have their roots in UW School of Medicine research.
Last update: Sept. 29, 2009