Kenneth Roberts, the recently named director of the University of Washingtons medical school program here, says hes excited about the opportunities involved in creating a start-up program, but is prepared to face some challenges along the way.


Roberts will spend most of the next several months preparing for the arrival of 20 first-year medical students to start classes at the Riverpoint Higher Education Park this fall. The Riverpoint campus will become the fifth location where first-year UW medical students can take classes as part of the WWAMI program, which is named after the states in which the sites are locatedWashington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. Students take first-year courses at state universities in those states, spend their second year at the UW School of Medicine in Seattle, and receive clinical education at sites across the five states.


As the director of the medical education program here, which is a collaboration between the UW, WSU-Spokane, and Eastern Washington University, Roberts says his two primary responsibilities will be to oversee and direct the first-year medical school curriculum and to build a medical school faculty here. He is a WSU-Spokane employee.


We want to make sure that the curriculum is first rate and up to the standards of the UW, Roberts says. Were trying to build a faculty in Spokane that looks like a medical school faculty, who will teach but in large part will be responsible for creating research programs.


The curriculum for first-year medical students, who already have undergraduate degrees, includes courses in basic science, such as anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, neuroscience, and pharmacology, he says. The first year also includes the students initial exposure to clinical medicine, he says.


WSU-Spokanes Health Sciences Building has a high-tech classroom and several labs and faculty offices and research space ready for use, he says. The technology available in the classroom will allow the Spokane campus to receive lectures from and to share its own lectures with other WWAMI sites via teleconferencing, he says.


Roberts says his first goal is to get to know the program inside and out, and establish the curriculum. Up until this month, he has lived in Minneapolis, where he worked at the University of Minnesota. Roberts credits Mike Laskowsky, who has served as the programs interim director here, for laying the groundwork for the program by working on curriculum, starting the process of finding faculty members to teach classes during the first year, and negotiating budgets.


Roberts second goal, and what he expects to be one of his biggest challenges initially, is to recruit four faculty members for the program. Some current faculty members from WSU and EWU will help with teaching courses for the program, but it also has enough funding to employ four faculty members who will be dedicated solely to the medical program, he says. The program also has enough money that it can help those faculty members establish their research here so they can compete for money from the National Institutes of Health, which is the nations foremost health-research funding organization, he says. Roberts adds that one of the goals of research in medical schools is to obtain funding from sources such as the NIH so research can be carried out at a higher level.


Roberts says he hopes to find faculty members who will be interested in working with clinicians in Spokane, since the area is a regional health-care center.


Spokane is a pretty amazing city in terms of the amount of medicine it has, he says. I think we can hire faculty in any number of areas who could find clinical collaborators in Spokane.


Although prospective faculty members dont need to be involved in certain types of research to qualify to be hired for the positions, they will end up being assigned to one of the departments at WSU in Pullman that do research, such as the school of molecular biosciences, he says.


When we advertised for the positions, we advertised for the areas of strength that exist in Pullman, but that doesnt necessarily mean the applicant must fit exactly with one of the departments, he says.


About 70 people applied for the four positions, and the field has been whittled down to 10, he says. Roberts expects to conduct face-to-face interviews with those applicants by the end of March, then create a short list of candidates who will be invited back to the campus for a second visit. Roberts hopes to fill the four positions by June.


The biggest challenge energywise will be the recruitment process, he says. We have to make sure were selecting the right people, and that the process is successful.


Although Spokane is home to several universities, its unlike the WWAMI programs other first-year medical school sites, which are based at major universities that have larger faculty bases from which to draw for teaching students, he says. Plus, since the Spokane program is in its infancy, its somewhat difficult to recruit faculty members from larger research centers who would be willing to start new research programs or to move their current research projects here, he says.


I see this as a tremendous ground-floor opportunity, and I think the program is going to flourish and generate great research, Roberts says. You have to convince people that Spokane is the happening place where research is going to grow, and that theyre coming into a startup operation that will be spectacular.


Roberts, who was an associate professor at the University of Minnesota, also will be involved in biomedical research at Riverpoint. His primary research focus over the last several years has been on an organ called the epididymis, which is part of the male reproductive tract. He says his research on the epididymis could be applied to a variety of areas, including infertility and the development of non-hormonal male contraceptives.


Roberts has received funding for his studies from the NIH, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Madison, N.J-based Wyeth Research. Hes working on bringing one of his studies, which is focused on proteins made by the epididymis, to Spokane from Minnesota. He plans to hire a technician to work on the study, and will look for urologists here who are willing to work with him on the research, as doctors did in Minnesota.


I fully expect that I will find people, particularly urologists, that I will be able to collaborate with, Roberts says. Those types of collaborations help clinicians think about the basic science side of what they do, and help researchers think about the applications of what they do.


Roberts, who grew up in a town north of Aberdeen, Wash., received a doctorate in biochemistry from WSU. Hes not a physician, but its fairly typical for directors of WWAMI programs to hold doctorates rather than medical degrees, says Judith Van Dongen, creative services manager at WSU-Spokane. Roberts degree in biochemistry and research background equip him to administer curriculum focused on basic sciences and to promote biomedical research better than a physician who didnt also hold a doctorate, Van Dongen asserts.


Roberts says he became interested in medical education during his 15-year stint at the University of Minnesota. Prior to that, he had been involved in male reproductive research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. While at the University of Minnesota, he was the director of basic research in the department of urologic surgery and director of the program in human anatomy education. The latter post immersed him in medical education administration, he says.


I went into it without any background and emerged from there with quite a bit of experience and a real love for doing it, Roberts says. Thats what made the job in Spokane so interestingits a job where I get to be over the curriculum, and Im back at WSU, which is a much better environment for reproductive research.


Contact Emily Proffitt at (509) 344-1265 or via e-mail at emilyp@spokanejournal.com.