A brief history of graduate medical education in Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho.

Internships and hospital-based medical education preceded by more than 40 years the beginnings of a medical school in Washington State. Just after the turn of the 20th century, a few internships were begun by hospitals in Seattle and Spokane to help with the care of their sicker patients in the tradition of Eastern teaching hospitals. In the 1920s and 1930s, the number of hospitals with internship programs grew steadily as part of a nationwide effort at hospital standardization. Experiences in developing these programs and problems with intern recruitment contributed to the beginning of the University of Washington School of Medicine after World War II. Since the 1960s, intern and resident training has progressively become a cooperative effort of the school with many hospitals and clinics in Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho contributing to the development of graduate medical education in this region.