The University of Washington Pediatric Residency Alaska Track, of which Providence is the principle coordinating site, has been recognized with the 2020 Outstanding Teaching Award from the Academic Pediatric Association. This is the highest honor given in the United States each year to a pediatric teaching program.
The purpose of this award is to foster interest in the teaching of general pediatrics by giving national recognition to an outstanding general pediatric program. Programs must demonstrate excellence in educational teaching methods, acceptance by students and/residents, acceptance by the community or outstanding quality of the individuals trained in the program.
The Alaska Track pediatric residency program is a collaboration between the University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Children’s Hospital that rotates residents among four Alaska sites: Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, LaTouche Pediatrics n Anchorage, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Regional Hospital in Bethel and the Tanana Valley Clinic in Fairbanks. Providence Alaska is the principle coordinating site and oversees financial and graduate medical education needs for the track.
The Alaska Track, established in 2012, is intended to provide pediatric residents with primary care training to prepare for work in rural communities of the five-state region: Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho (WWAMI). The Alaska Track program helps fill the need for high-quality primary care providers in underserved communities. Nearly 70% of graduates return to Alaska to practice, and 90% practice in the WWAMI region.
Pediatric residents of the Alaska Track have worked to improve the health of Alaskans through interventions such as the “Cavity-Free by Three” program in Fairbanks; the initiation of a school-based clinic in Bethel to help curb teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and suicide; and a protocol to care for newborns born to mothers with opiate dependence, which has become the standard-of-care at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.
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