9.4 Clerkship Housing & Transportation Policy

Policy Statement
The UWSOM provides housing and transportation support to medical students who are outside their duty station and enrolled in required clerkships.  

Requirements, Procedures and Guidelines
The School of Medicine provides housing and travel support for required clerkships located outside the student’s duty station. Students are responsible for all travel-related expenses once they arrive at their clerkship site and are expected to provide their own transportation. Students are expected to travel between clinical and didactic teaching sites during the clerkships, and it is the student’s responsibility to understand expectations for travel while at the clerkship site and make appropriate plans before the clerkship begins.

UWSOM does not provide housing for city or state-based Track students at Track sites; Track students must secure their own housing, which becomes their permanent address for the Patient Care Phase and Explore and Focus Phase.

Non-Track students are eligible for housing for the required clerkships in family medicine, medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, neuroscience, emergency medicine, and advanced patient care rotations unless the clinical site is within driving distance of their designated current residence. UWSOM does not provide medical student housing for elective courses.

There is also no funding available to support commuting while at clinical sites or within the Seattle metropolitan area. Many clinical rotations, both in and outside the Seattle metropolitan area, require students to commute between multiple clinical sites, between didactic teaching sites and clinical training sites, and between student housing and clinical facilities. You will need to take the initiative to discover all site-specific transportation requirements before your clerkship begins. Some clerkship sites can provide vehicles, shuttle services, or other forms of transportation, while other sites provide limited or no transportation.

For specific housing, travel, and transportation-related questions, review the WWAMI Student Travel website and respective contact the department clerkship administrator for more information.

Effective: Current
Last updated: August 11, 2020
Policy Contact: UW School of Medicine, Curriculum Office, somgov@uw.edu; Education Quality Improvement Office, eqi@uw.edu