The presidents of University of Washington and Washington State University signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Oct. 3 that dissolved the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho) Regional Medical Education partnership between the two entities.

According to the memorandum, UW will proceed with its planned expansion of the WWAMI program in Spokane, and WSU will seek state authority to accredit a separate, independent medical school in Spokane.

Norman Arkans, associate vice president of Media Relations and Communications at UW, said the memorandum provides a pathway for each university to pursue its own independent solutions in Spokane.

“For us, that means rapid expansion of our UW medical school in Spokane, doubling the class size, offering all four years and committing to an aggressive research program,” Arkans said in an email.

In the 1970s, UW began to train and prepare physicians to care for patients and communities in Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho, with Wyoming joining in 1996.

According to the UW Medicine website, the primary goals of WWAMI are to provide cost-effective, publicly supported, community-based medical education, increase the number of primary care physicians and expand graduate medical education and continuing medical education.

The partnership UW had with WSU, according to the WSU WWAMI website, would have allowed WSU to have its first-year medical students begin their training at Spokane’s Riverpoint campus, with second-year students having the option to study at UW in either Seattle or Spokane and third and fourth-year students having the option of coming back to Spokane or other eastern Washington sites for clinical rotations.

According to WSU’s medical science webpage, Spokane’s four hospitals and five residency programs make the city a perfect fit for a medical school.

Arkans said as UW proceeds independently of WSU, it will be consulting with a variety of educational, medical and community partners in Spokane about opportunities for future collaboration, including Eastern Washington University.

Dave Meany, EWU director of media relations, said in an email that Eastern has historically had very productive partnerships with both UW and WSU and the university looks forward to continuing strong relationships with all of its academic partners.

“We already have a strong collaboration with [EWU] in dental education through the RIDE (Regional Initiatives in Dental Education) program,” Arkans said, “And some role with WWAMI may be in the cards.”