COMMUNITY / EDUCATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS

EDUCATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS

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As a rural hospital, the education of future healthcare professionals is one of our fundamental purposes. We have entered into a number of formal and informal partnerships with leading educational institutions to provide students with opportunities to complete their medical training with rotations in rural healthcare settings. 

This helps develop a broad skill set. It also draws medical professionals to our area and fosters an interest in our communities. This is an excellent recruiting and workforce development strategy; research shows students are more likely to seek employment and serve in the communities in which they have trained.

Mid-Valley Hospital & Clinic partner with Wenatchee Valley College’s Nursing Program, serving as a clinical site. We have a vested interest Wenatchee Valley College in Omak’s medical programs and work with them to place new grads, as well as strategically working towards workforce development in Okanogan County.

WSU has selected Mid-Valley Clinic as one of the first clinical sites for their Rural Residency Program. This allows Mid-Valley to provide mentored experiences with licensed physicians for on-the-job training and supervision. These experiences helps medical students understand the development of the fundamentals of clinical practice.

Mid-Valley Hospital has been a clinical site for UW’s Healthcare Alternative Spring Break job shadowing program and MedEx PA-C program for many years. This program is about understanding the differences of healthcare in rural vs. urban communities.

MVH & Clinic currently have a clinical affiliation agreement with Heritage University for students training to become Physician Assistants to participate in clinical and surgical rotations in our facilities.

Mid-Valley also has clinical affiliation agreements in place with Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences (PNWU), School of Osteopathic Medicine for students training to become Doctors of Osteopathy (DO).

Mid-Valley Hospital has partnered with Chef Tobin of the Inland Northwest Culinary Academy program and Worksource Okanogan for training sessions for our kitchen staff!

The MultiCare Omak Rural Training Program 

The Omak Family Medicine Residency Program received accreditation to develop a family medicine rural training track for physicians-in-training. The program’s unique combination of resources provides comprehensive training for residents in rural family medicine.

A residency or resident doctor is a medical school graduate and doctor in training who is taking part in a graduate medical education program. Meanwhile under a residency program, a doctor-in-training can provide direct medical care. 

Three organizations are involved: Family Health Center and Mid-Valley Hospital & Clinic in Omak, and MultiCare. The program is grant-funded by three sources: $4.1 million from Premera, funding from the state of Washington, and support from Pacific Northwest University in Yakima. There are two training sites separated by 250 miles. 

Conversations regarding a residency program began three years ago, when Dr. Benko from Tacoma Family Medicine (TFM), saw an opportunity to fulfill part of its mission to train physicians to serve communities in need. For residents and fellows, it would offer in-depth training to prepare them to work in a rural community. Dr. James Wallace from Family Health Centers saw it as a way to improve recruitment in rural Okanogan County. 

This program offers the best of both worlds, combining the benefits of an urban established Family Medicine program with the subsequent hands-on, real-world rural continuity experience.

Residents will spend their first year in Tacoma training at Tacoma General (TG), Mary Bridge and Tacoma Family Medicine, where they’ll have rotations in high-acuity, complex healthcare settings. They will also have a continuity primary care clinic that serves a broad cross-section of the Tacoma Hilltop neighborhood near TG.

Residents will then train for two years in Omak at Family Health Centers and Mid-Valley Hospital & Clinic. Here residents will concentrate on primary care and receive focused training in OB/Gyn, General Surgery, Radiology, Pediatrics and Public Health rotations. Residents may return to Tacoma for elective rotations as needed. Dr. Wallace will be joined by his Family Health Center colleague, Emily Miller, MD (TFM residency and rural fellowship program graduate), in training the residents in Omak.