Network of Underrepresented Residents & Fellows

UW-NURF values its commitment to serving underrepresented individuals in medicine as well as the community at large. Our community service and advocacy projects are numerous, including staffing and providing care at neighborhood clinics, Greater Puget Sound-area health service events, high school enrichment events such as Doctor for a Day, and many others. We hope to inspire not only a culture of healthcare and health awareness in underserved communities but also garner interest in medicine as a tangible career course for young people who are underrepresented in medicine or who come from underprivileged backgrounds.

UW Medicine provides a training experience that values mentorship, apprenticeship, and communal growth to our dedicated peers, attendings, faculty and faculty advisers. Thus, we believe that guidance during the most pivotal years of training is integral to the success of our respective programs and our community. UW-NURF helps to establish invaluable partnerships between students, trainees, faculty, and upper-level leaders, fostering an atmosphere of interdisciplinary insight and growth. Post-GME advisers and enrichment seminars are available to offer guidance towards individual career road maps and goals. Mentorship within UW-NURF has contributed to research partnerships, networking and job opportunities, quality improvement projects, and growth for the underrepresented and underprivileged community here at UW Medicine.

UW-NURF boasts a multidisciplinary and multicultural community representing physicians from all medical specialties. UW Medicine is home to a large medical community of both institutional and private sector medical centers. To our advantage, we can offer networking opportunities and open communication with healthcare providers throughout the WWAMI region. We also co-host and facilitate social events and mixers with students, trainees, faculty, and local area physicians. We often partner with the Committee on Minority Faculty Affairs, the Resident and Physician Union – Northwest, and the various UW School of Medicine racial and cultural affinity groups.

We believe that the strength of an academic program relies not only on its reputation, abundant resources, esteemed faculty, and dedicated trainees, but also its ability to represent a diverse group of individuals with a passion for healing, service, and teaching. Thus, outreach and recruitment to those underrepresented in medicine constitutes a major tenet of UW-NURF. We partner with GME Residency and Fellowship programs, and encourage designating a UW-NURF liaison to assist in the recruitment and retention of talented underrepresented students, residents, fellows, faculty, and staff. We have held national town halls regarding recruitment of trainees and frequently attend national medical conferences. We also offer a medical student mentorship program and partner with the Committee on Faculty Minority Affairs to develop an education pipeline within UW Medicine.

With the diverse patient population in our region, we believe that by improving cultural understanding for providers, we will see better healthcare services, outcomes, and quality of care, which in turn will help reduce healthcare disparities related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, and disability, among others. With this goal in mind, UW-NURF hosts a diversity lecture series throughout the academic year with speakers from a wide-range of backgrounds. We have also partnered with leadership, to hold town hall meetings, where we discuss, in a welcoming, respectful environment, challenging cultural topics in the healthcare workplace. Task forces have also been formed in partnership with other UW entities to improve quality of care for our patients and quality of training for our students, residents and fellows.