Ending Alaska’s medical school program would be a 41-year setback

I have been involved with the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho) program for years, first as an occasional lecturer in the 1970s — the program began in 1971 — and I was involved more recently for 20 years before I retired 2 years ago as Clinical Dean.

We need full funding.

If we lose the program, we will be the only state in the union without state-sponsored medical education. That’s a distinction we don’t need. The only other state that does not have an in-state medical school is Delaware, and it has a similar arrangement as our current WWAMI program at Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

I do not know where the governor’s staff got their statistic on the program’s return rate, but it is incorrect. For our investment in every 20 students we send down, we get 14 doctors back (70%). Sixty percent are from our communities, and the other 10% are from students at the medical school who have done clinical rotations up here. Incidentally, the 60% return rate is the fourth-highest in the country for public medical schools.

Only a few of our students are doctors’ sons or daughters. The most common occupation of the parents is teaching. A significant number of the students are the first college students in their families.

Twenty communities in our state have sent us medical students — this includes Alaska Native communities.

Twenty-two communities have practicing WWAMI graduates.

Without the WWAMI program and the 20 first-year guaranteed slots for us, Alaskans will have very limited opportunities to pursue medical degrees. Other medical schools service their own states. Private medical education is well beyond the means of almost all Alaskans.

I am not sure where the governor is getting his information. Increasing the Permanent Fund dividend and refusing to consider other revenue sources, while devastating the state’s higher education system, does not make sense and does not bode well for the future of Alaska.

Tom Nighswander, M.D., MPH, is a retired Clinical Dean of the Alaska WWAMI program.

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