Gritman CEO: Hospital needs WWAMI students
Besst discusses recent Idaho legislation regarding medical school, talks about therapy pool closure
MOSCOW — Gritman Medical Center CEO Kara Besst said medical students from the WWAMI program are “super important” to Idaho and to the Moscow hospital.
This was in response to a question about proposed state legislation, posed during a League of Women Voters of Moscow forum Wednesday.
Besst gave a presentation to the league about the hospital’s goals for 2025. During a question and answer session, she was asked about recent bills in the Idaho Legislature that would reduce or get rid of Idaho’s partnership in the University of Washington medical school program, called WWAMI (which stands for Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho).
The Idaho House recently passed House Bill 368, which would reduce at least 10 seats from Idaho’s partnership with the University of Washington medical school and the other Western states.
Idaho ranks last nationally in the number of physicians per capita. Besst said there is a national shortage of doctors, as well, because there are not enough medical schools and it can take eight to 10 years to fully train a physician.
Besst said losing out on more medical students would be “really devastating” for the local community.
“Most of our providers come through the WWAMI program,” she said. “We want those students here, that’s why we put them in our building.”
She said there are 80 medical students in the Moscow community. Besst encouraged people to talk to their state representatives about the WWAMI program.
Besst also commented on Gritman’s decision to close the therapy pool at the Martin Wellness Center, which garnered criticism from the pool’s users.
One of the pool’s patrons, Susan Hodgin, said during Wednesday’s presentation that she and others are still “grieving” over the loss of the pool and the community that formed because of it. Hodgin urged Gritman to bring back the pool if possible.
Besst said the building that housed the pool dates back to the 1950s and there were safety concerns about the aging facility.
“As we were talking to our architects, and contractors, it was in the millions to fix that building and we just don’t have that at this time,” Besst said.
Ultimately, the Gritman Board of Directors chose to close the pool because it “was not financially possible to keep the pool going,” board member Barbara Wells said Wednesday.
Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.
