WWAMI medical students have always had a heart for outreach.  Every year we are impressed with the level of outside commitment our students take on in addition to their heavy course load.  The outreach efforts are sponsored by the UI/WSU WWAMI Medical Education Program and UWSoM Area Health Education Centers through programs such as SPARX.

Undergraduate Partnerships - WWAMI students work with undergraduate pre-medical student clubs and often take pre-meds with them to help with presentations to high school students. 

Undergraduate Programs - This summer, the Idaho WWAMI office worked with the Boise Clinical Office and the Idaho Association of Family Physicians to set up shadowing experiences with doctors in pre-medical students' hometowns.  A couple of the undergrads were also connected with our medical students while they were participating in R/UOP. This experience "breaks the ice" and sets up the potential for mentoring relationships as well as future shadowing experiences during school breaks that will enhance the student's application for medical school.

In another program this summer, we placed four undergraduate pre-medical students in a two week shadowing experience at the Family Practice Residency of Idaho in Boise and the ISU Family Practice Residency in Pocatello.  Each student gained an appreciation for the scope of family practice and made valuable contacts with people who are traveling the path on which these students hope to follow.

High School Presentations - WWAMI students make presentations ranging from health career information to health issues such as tobacco cessation.  The health issue presentations often include the use of organ specimens as an effective illustration to the young audience.  In addition, WWAMI students are encouraged to participate in other forms of outreach to high school students.  One such program occurred in Fall of 2004 at a School Health Fair in Plummer, Idaho on the Couer d'Alene Reservation.

International Opportunities - WWAMI students are notified of numerous opportunities to participate in medical missions to foreign countries.  One such program occurred in Summer 2002 when four WWAMI medical students accompanied Dr. Jim Clark (of Pullman, Wa) along with several WSU and UI pre-medical students, nurses, and physician assistants to Peru for a week.  There they lived aboard a boat and administered basic health care to people living on a tributary of the Amazon River.