N. Jane Shelby Is the New Director of the Alaska WWAMI School of Medical Education

N. Jane Shelby was appointed director of the Alaska WWAMI School of Medicine. WWAMI is a collaborative medical school among universities in the states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho in conjunction with the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. The Alaska WWAMI program began in 1971 at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks but is now housed at the University of Alaska at Anchorage. The University of Washington admits 20 students from Alaska each year into the WWAMI program. They take classes for the first year in Anchorage and then spend year two of medical school in Seattle. Third and fourth year medical students can participate in clerkship rotations of various medical specialties in any of the five WWAMI states. Dr. Shelby will lead the program in Anchorage.

Dr. Shelby was the interim executive director of the Division of Health Sciences at Montana State University in Bozeman. Previously, she was a tenured associate professor of surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Salt Lake City. She holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Utah School of Medicine and Health Sciences.