The UW School of Medicine has partnered with Lake Chelan Health and Columbia Valley Community Health to build a robust regional family medicine residency program.
First accredited in 2017, the program admits two trainees per year, who spend their first year in Seattle and their second and third years in Chelan, Washington.
This Family Medicine rural residency training program, sponsored by the School of Medicine, is a bright spot in contributing to our mission of improving the health of the public by training physicians to care for patients in the region.
“One of the program’s highlights is an emphasis on place-based learning. Resident physicians live and train in a smaller, more resource-limited community rather than a large urban setting,” says Tobe Harberd, MD, interim program director for the Family Medicine Chelan program. “This allows residents to become more ingrained in the community (personally and professionally) and ultimately results in a higher likelihood of them selecting a rural practice location after graduation.”
Committed to building the rural physician workforce
The program is a meaningful example of UW Medicine’s commitment to training physicians who will serve our WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) community. We know that physicians tend to stay and practice in the areas where they train, which is one reason that developing rural and regional clinical training programs is so important.
“Training within the rural training track of the University of Washington Family Medicine Residency has been a rewarding experience on all fronts, says Trevor Carver, DO, R3, Family Medicine Chelan Program. “Rural medicine has many unique challenges and variables that healthcare workers, including physicians, face every day. For the many of us who plan to work in a rural setting, training in an environment that mirrors that of our future practice allows us to adapt to these challenges and become proficient in navigating the landscape of rural medicine upon graduation.”
The program was also recently named on the Rural Medical Training Collaborative’s 2025 List of Featured Programs with a Proven Track Record of Producing Rural Physicians.
This annual recognition highlights residency programs, like the School of Medicine’s Family Medicine residency program in Chelan, that demonstrate a strong commitment to building the rural physician workforce by having at least 35% of their graduates enter rural practice as their initial placement, based on a rolling three-year average.