Overview
The University of Washington Alaska Internal Medicine Rural Residency Program is the nation’s first ACGME-accredited program of its kind. It offers the best of both worlds by combining the educational expertise of a well-established urban academic program with a novel primary care training experience in rural Alaska.
1-2 Model
The program will follow the 1-2 model common among rural training programs in family medicine. The first year will be spent integrated with the University of Washington Internal Medicine Residency Program in Seattle, WA. Our residents (2-2-2) will be embedded in the primary care cohort for their intern year, getting excellent training in the core clinical skills for primary care, inpatient medicine, intensive care, neurology, and geriatrics.
Our residents will then move to the rural community of Soldotna, Alaska for their second and third years. In Soldotna, residents will have an intensive longitudinal outpatient experience, including four half-days per week of continuity clinic providing primary care and internal medicine consultation to a panel of medically complex patients. They will spend additional months in Alaska doing core and elective rotations at other rural and urban sites throughout the state, allowing them to get broad-spectrum general internal medicine training, as well as exposure to diverse clinical opportunities available for future practice.
Rural primary care
In contrast to more traditional IM programs, this program is particularly focused on training residents to be strong rural primary care providers, with a honed skill set that allows them to care for highly comorbid/complex patients in communities with far fewer health care resources than are available in metropolitan areas.
Highlights
- Rural continuity clinic site offers full spectrum outpatient general internal medicine:
- Primary care
- Management of subspecialty problems
- Internal medicine consultation for local family practitioners and surgeons
- Interpretation of cardiac stress tests and PFTs
- Outpatient procedures, including paracentesis, thoracentesis, cardioversion, joint injections, and skin biopsies
- Robust training in non-IM specialty skills that are essential to providing comprehensive primary care in a rural area
- Longitudinal curriculum in Alaska to maximize continuity of care and skill-building
- Small complement to allow for individualized teaching and a highly supportive training environment
- Mentorship from a close-knit team of board-certified internists with well over fifty years combined experience in clinical medicine and education
- Opportunity to teach UW third-year medical students on their IM core clerkship
- High volume of endoscopy for invested learners
- Elective experiences with remote Alaskan communities and tribal health organizations
- Several options for full spectrum jobs on the Kenai Peninsula and throughout Alaska post-residency
Mission
The University of Washington - Alaska Internal Medicine Rural Residency Program (UW AK IM RRP) will provide outstanding general internal medicine training, including an intensive Alaska-based rural primary care experience, with the goal of recruiting exceptional internists to practice in high-need Alaskan communities.
Vision
UW AK IM RRP graduates will improve the health of rural and urban Alaskans by providing primary care to patients with complex medical problems; offering internal medicine consultation, as well as coordination of care with medical subspecialists, when subspecialty care is difficult to access; and serving in educational and leadership roles within their medical communities.