Clinical experiences for medical education in Alaska

Several recent physician workforce reports in Alaska have called for a rapid increase in the number of state-supported medical school positions to between 30 and 50 new students per year, preferably through WWAMI--Alaska's Medical School. Here we compare the number of clinical experiences for undergraduate and graduate medical education in Alaska as compared with other states to determine if they are likely to be limiting factors for expansion. Data were primarily gathered from the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and from Alaska WWAMI. The data demonstrate that: 1) Alaska currently supports far fewer medical student clerkship experiences per capita than other states; 2) Alaska currently supports far fewer medical residents per capita than other states; 3) neither of these is due to an inadequate physician workforce to provide the training, using other states as a standard; and 4) clinical experiences should not be a limiting factor for expansion of medical education in the state.