Director:  Linda E. Hyman, Ph.D.
Associate Director: Brownie Schoene, M.D.
WWAMI Program Manager: Elizabeth Nicholas
WWAMI Research Associate: Hank Allen   

I. The WWAMI Office and the Staff

The WWAMI office (rooms 308, 309 & 310 Leon Johnson Hall) is a place that you will visit frequently in order to pick up your mail, use the telephone, use the copy machine, and visit the Director, the Associate Director and the other staff. You can use the telephone to call the University of Washington concerning financial aid and other academic matters. Likewise, you may use the fax for school-related matters. Use of the copying machine is available in the office. Be sure that you have received instructions from Elizabeth before you use the office equipment.

The titles of Director and Associate Director imply that they have some control of what is going on in the program. However, professors are an independent bunch of people; that is what makes them interesting and effective. Therefore, complete management by the Director and/or Associate Director is not always a realistic or even a wise goal. They at least like to know what is going on and, in part, depend on students to help keep them informed. Their doors are usually open and, when they are, that means you are invited to go in to talk as they are interested in hearing about any problems you may be having, whether they be academic, financial or personal. They are also interested in hearing about things that you find interesting and exciting, and about problems that you may have detected in our curriculum. They want to help things run smoothly and help solve problems for both students and faculty in this program. Their main concern for you as a student is that your enthusiasm for learning should stay high, and they will do anything within reason to promote that.

II. Curriculum

The first year curriculum of the WWAMI Program at MSU is very similar to the first year curriculum at the University of Washington. The courses and usually the reading materials are the same. There are small differences that allow us to take advantage of our small class size and to compensate for the fact that fewer faculty members teach the curriculum. The University of Washington has some advantages over us. For example, some of the faculty members have more specialized expertise in the subjects that they teach. On the other hand, WWAMI at MSU has some advantages over the University of Washington. For example, the fact that we use fewer faculty members makes for better continuity in our courses.

Brief descriptions of most of the courses that you will take during the first year can be found at http://www.montana.edu/wwwwami/courses.html. Later in the year the Assistant Dean for Curriculum of the University of Washington will visit to talk to you about the specific organ system courses which you will take during your second year and clerkships which you will take during the third and fourth years. At that time you will also hear about the independent study project which you must complete before the spring of your fourth year.

One of the things that you should know is that the University of Washington Medical School curriculum can be individualized when that is in the best interests of the student. Arrangements can be made to delay graduation for periods of time if you want to do an extensive research project, if you want to spend some time doing international medicine, if your personal or family affairs make special demands on your time, or if your learning style requires a pace slower than the usual medical school curriculum.

III. Exams

All courses that require midterm evaluations participate in all-subject (concurrent) quizzes given every other Monday morning.  We believe that this system has decreased the stress of tests, has promoted greater integration of learning, has stopped the type of studying that allowed students to fall far behind in one course at the expense of studying for another, and has made class time more usable for more students. Our students feel comfortable with the system and we intend to continue to improve upon this method, hopefully by making more of the questions more integrative and based on more real-world situations.

Certain examinations or parts of examinations are given to students at all the sites in the University of Washington system. These are called common examinations or common examination questions. Their importance in your overall grade varies from one course to another. The purpose of these examinations is twofold. First, they provide some assurance that passing a course at one site means the same thing as passing the course at another site. Second, and more importantly, they provide a way of showing that the teaching is of comparable quality throughout the WWAMI Program.

IV. Grades

The grades that you can earn are simply Pass and Fail. A grade of Pass means that you have sufficient knowledge of the material to be a good physician. The faculty are asked to develop criteria for the passing grade and, if students achieve at that level, that grade should be given. We expect all students to pass.  A numerical score is forwarded to the UWSOM with your Pass/Fail grade, but these numbers are only used to help the Student Progress Committee to make recommendations when a student has an academic problem.  The numbers are not used to sort passing students into categories and are not used in the Dean's letter of evaluation for Residency placement. This approach allows us to encourage students to cooperate with each other and help each other to master the material rather than compete with each other. A Pass-Fail system does not mean that we are recommending minimalism in your study of medicine. We do not encourage you to do the least possible work to clear the line between Pass and Fail. An attitude of curiosity, thoroughness and high quality work is what makes a good physician or a good anything. Therefore, we hope that everyone will try to do as well as possible in many courses.

Honors

Honors grades are not offered in the year one curriculum (although they used to be) but are offered in years two-four.  You will hear more about their assignment and worth when you start year two in Seattle.

Fail

A Fail generally means that the instructor does not view your understanding as adequate to meet the minimum requirements of the course or to go on with clinical work. If you get a Fail you will have to do something to correct it. Your instructor will make a recommendation as to what this should be. The Student Progress Committee at the University of Washington will either approve or revise that recommendation. What the recommendation is will depend on how poor your performance in the course has been. Usually you will be required to restudy some or all of the material and take a repeat examination.

The faculty and I spend a lot of time trying to interpret the meaning of Fail grades. Sometimes it means that one particular area was especially difficult for you and that you need a little bit more time to deal with it. It may mean that the whole curriculum is a little too fast for you. It may mean that you were having some personal problems that interfered with your ability to study at that time. It is not a negative judgment and in no way means that you are not going to be a good physician. If your enthusiasm for medicine remains high and you are not inordinately distracted by problems outside of the medical curriculum, each and every one of you will become an outstanding physician.

Do Fail grades show on your record? Yes, they do. Once you correct the deficiency which led to the Fail your grade on the medical school record will be changed from F to P, and there will be a comment indicating that the course was passed by repeat examination. The Dean's letter will also indicate that you completed the course through a re-examination. If you have more than one uncorrected Fail grade on your record at any given time, you will be put on academic probation. The more Fail grades you have beyond that, the more problematic it becomes. If you continue to have a pattern of difficulty and are unable to resolve whatever is interfering with your performance, then the Student Progress Committee will need to make a decision about whether you should continue in school.

Narrative Evaluations

Instructors have the option of providing narrative evaluations of students for the academic record. This method of student evaluation is not used extensively during the first and second year of medical school, but it becomes increasingly important during the clinical years. Most students are not used to getting narrative comments that include the subjective evaluation by faculty of their performance. Our instructors are encouraged to provide these evaluations so that you have a chance to get used to this evaluation technique at a time when it does not count very much. This evaluation is done on a form on which the instructor can rate and comment on your performance in a variety of categories such as knowledge, application of knowledge, educational attitudes, and professional conduct.

The narrative evaluation is divided into two parts: Areas of evaluation concern and overall performance. Evaluation concerns are comments designed to provide you feedback on how your performance is perceived by the faculty and to help you improve your performance. They are not usually included in the "Dean's letter" which is written by the medical school unless there is a pattern of difficulty identified over several more courses. During the first year any negative comments are more than likely to end up in this category where they can help you but not hurt your record. Comments on your overall performance can be included in the "Dean's letter." This category gives our faculty a chance to provide positive comments on your academic, personal and professional performance.

V. Course Evaluations

The content and structure of the courses in the curriculum of the Montana WWAMI Program have been strongly influenced by the ideas and evaluations of students.  Later in the semester you will be given instructions on how to do the on-line evaluations. I want to emphasize early on that immediate feedback from the students to the faculty or me is important in keeping our teaching program on track. If you don't like what's happening, let us know at once. One of the advantages of a small class and a small faculty is that we can react quickly. We may be able to do something that benefits your class as well as classes that will follow in subsequent years. The most efficient way to do this is to talk to the instructor in the course. If, for some reason this is awkward, talk to me, or put an anonymous note in my mailbox outside the WWAMI office.

VI. Attendance

Attendance is required when it is the only way that the student can get anything out of the course and the only way that students can be evaluated. Courses in which this is the case include the Clinical Preceptorship, the Introduction to Clinical Medicine, small group discussions and laboratory courses.

In other courses regular attendance is expected because the courses are designed to make it as easy and efficient as possible for students to get through the large amount of material in the first year curriculum. In general, however, attendance is not taken and attendance does not affect your grade. Attendance can be discussed in your subjective evaluations (see section IV) especially if it is believed to have contributed to a not satisfactory grade.

Illness is always an acceptable reason for absence from class or postponing an examination. Please let the instructor or the Director or Associate Director know if you are ill. We know that the pace of medical education is fast, but if illness brings you to a standstill we can and want to make adjustments that will allow you to catch up with the least possible stress. If we learn that you are taking exams when you feel really lousy, we will conclude that you lack common sense! And that judgment would be more detrimental to your record than a poor test score.

If you do not want to attend class regularly because you feel that it is not an efficient way for you to learn certain things, please let the instructor  know. The instructors will not take it personally but rather will want to help you design a learning plan that works for you.

Sometimes there is a scheduling glitch that is likely to lead to absence of a large number of students at the same time. If you see something like this coming do not assume that we know about it or that it is intentional! Let us know; we probably overlooked something. We will either fix the schedule or at least let the instructor know that attendance will be low so that he or she can prepare a session that is appropriate to the number that are likely to attend.

Attendance of sessions given by visiting lecturers is required. Included are practicing physicians from the medical community and visiting lecturers from the University of Washington and other institutions. These are people who have been asked to come because we know they are good or because they offer something that can be presented to students in no other way. Often they are coming from a long distance and are sacrificing considerable amounts of time (and often money) in order to be here. We would like to see you express your appreciation by attending and applauding their sessions. Only absences because of illness or other absences arranged in advance with the course director will be excused.

If students do not comply with the attendance policy, instructors will bring this to the attention of the WWAMI Director.

VII. Integrity of Students (and Physicians)

This is an awkward problem to address, perhaps because it may imply that we don't have confidence in one another. Unfortunately, there are students and physicians who don't always do the right thing. There are usually reasons for this such as personal problems, money problems, failure to recognize one's own limitations, reluctance to ask for help when needed, laziness, lack of thoroughness, or substance abuse. Physicians who practice inferior or dishonest medicine for these reasons are referred to as "impaired physicians." The same problems can be encountered in medical students and reveal themselves as plagiarism, cheating on examinations, inventing rather than obtaining clinical data, etc. They are serious problems because sooner or later a patient is going to get hurt.

There are no universally accepted rules and procedures for dealing with impaired physicians or students. So what do you do if you encounter such a person? These are my recommendations. If the person is yourself, you should recognize that you need help and that you can get it without sacrificing your career. Your career is much more likely to suffer if you do not get help and acknowledge the problem. If the person is someone else you would be doing that person a favor to confront him or her with the problem and to assist them in getting the help that they need. If confronting that person is too awkward or too hard, the next best thing would be to let someone else know that the person needs help. The someone else could be a friend, a professor, or myself. Somehow the issue needs to be dealt with and the sooner the better, before a patient gets hurt.

VIII. Professionalism

Because you will now be considered physicians, particularly by patients you contact, you need to consider what appropriate behavior and dress are.  Professional behavior will be covered in your ICM and clinical courses, but it may be an issue sooner than that.  So remember to dress appropriately when patients are likely to be present.  Remember to address other physicians and faculty as Dr. unless they specifically request that you not do so.

Return to regular view	Text-only	Updated: 06/15/2007