UW lands historic $25M gift to expand rural, indigenous medical training

The University of Washington School of Medicine has received a $25 million gift that will be used to train rural and Indigenous physicians across five Northwest states.

Philanthropists William and Carolyn Franke made the contribution, representing “the largest known family gift to support rural medical education nationwide,” according to UW Medicine.

“We see this as a transformational gift to further our efforts to ensure that our rural communities have access to care, which they are really suffering right now,” said Dr. Tim Dellit, CEO of UW Medicine and dean of the UW School of Medicine.

UW’s $25M gift directed toward scholarships, recruitment, and rural training

About $20 million will fund scholarships, covering half the tuition for roughly 30 students per year who are pursuing rural medicine or Indigenous health care. Another $4.5 million will establish the Franke Family Endowed Fund for Excellence to support recruitment and retention. The additional $500,000 is set aside to seed the fund and to provide immediate support for the W.A. Franke Rural Medical Education Summit.

The donation targets UW’s WWAMI program, a regional medical education network spanning Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho.

David Franke, president of Franke and Company and a UW alumnus, said the program’s track record drew his family’s support. The WWAMI model allows students to complete much of their medical training near home through partnerships with regional universities rather than relocating to Seattle.

“It has a 50-plus-year history of producing rural healthcare doctors,” Franke said. “About 65% of the graduates returned to some form of rural healthcare.”

Franke, whose family has a home in northwest Montana, recalled falling ill during a visit and driving 40 minutes to reach a small urgent-care clinic.

“I experienced firsthand both the challenges and the opportunity of supporting rural health, and the importance of it,” he said.

Pandemic-era losses, proposed Medicaid cuts make the timing critical

Dellit said the gift arrives at a critical moment. Pandemic-era attrition thinned the physician workforce, and proposed federal Medicaid cuts threaten to further destabilize small hospitals.

“We’re already seeing reductions in obstetric care in our rural communities, specialty care in our rural communities, access to behavioral health,” Dellit said.

Nationally, only about 30 to 35% of medical graduates enter primary care, Dellit noted. At UW, the figure is roughly 50%. He estimated 30 new primary-care physicians could collectively serve 30,000 additional patients a year.

“It allows our students to follow their dreams, as opposed to their debt,” Dellit said.

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