Sollus Northwest Family Practice Residency will soon be providing training for osteopathic physicians in the lower Yakima Valley of Washington state. The program was founded by the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic with sponsorship from Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima, WA.
The American Osteopathic Association accredited the program in 2010. It will be based at the Farm Workers Clinic in Grandview, Wash., with resident physicians practicing in Farm Workers Clinic facilities throughout the Yakima Valley. The residents will also practice at Kennewick (Wash.) General Hospital and at PMH Medical Center in Prosser, WA.
Like all residencies, the doctors who are being trained will provide care under the supervision of a fully licensed, practicing physician and maintain a regular panel of patients.
Sollus Northwest will welcome its first two residents in July 2013. Two more residents will be added each year, with an initial goal of having six total residents in the three-year program starting in July 2015.
Katheryn Norris, D.O., has been named director of the program, along with being named director of medical education for the Farm Workers Clinic. Before accepting her new position, she maintained an active practice in Sunnyside, Wash.
Ross Ronish, M.D., the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic’s corporate medical officer, was instrumental in establishing Sollus Northwest. He’s optimistic that once they train in the area they will decide to establish medical practices there. “We will be looking for doctors who want to practice in rural areas,” Ronish said. “This gives them an opportunity to train where they are going to work.”
