2026-2027 MEDEX Application Cycle Is Now Open
Applications will be accepted May 1 - October 1, 2026 for June 2027 matriculation.
Prospective applicants should review the updated admissions criteria on the Applicants page before applying.
Features
Meet some of the people of MEDEX Northwest – students and faculty, founders and visionaries – who have helped to forge the forward path for PAs and affect change in world of progressive and responsible healthcare delivery.
Building Trust Between The Homeless & The Medical Community
For three years the MEDEX Northwest Tacoma site has partnered with Urban Grace Church to offer a free monthly foot clinic to the underserved and homeless in the downtown Tacoma community. For some clients this is their only connection with medical providers—a chance to have their feet cared for by [...]
Affecting Change In Just The Right Places
After 29 years as program director of MEDEX Northwest, Ruth Ballweg stepped down from that role in 2015 and retired from the University of Washington in March of 2016. She is now Professor Emeritus in the Department of Family Medicine. Over the course of three decades, Ruth has had an [...]
Physician Assistants Taking the Lead in Global Health & Education
At the start of their clinical year four MEDEX physician assistant students participated in a global health pilot project and traveled to the Southeast nation of Laos. There, under the sponsorship of the NGO Health Leadership International, they assisted in training their Laotian counterparts, PA students at the College of [...]
Stronger Because Of It
Since 1970 Group Health Cooperative in Seattle has done more to promote the use of physician assistants in an urban setting than any other healthcare organization in the US. This short video examines the early history of the relationship between MEDEX Northwest and Group Health when 3 unproven “medex” from [...]
MEDEX Health Educators Empower Salvadorian Volunteers
MEDEX alumni, physician assistants and activists Lois Thetford (Seattle Class 14) and Sherry Lipsky (Seattle Class 9) report on their efforts to provide health education training and community organizing skills to the small rural Salvadorian town of Las Delicias, population 3,000. What they found was a community eager to learn [...]
It’s What Gets You Up In The Morning
Renowned for his lively pharmacotherapy lectures at MEDEX since 1982, Professor Allan Ellsworth, Pharm.D., interrupted his career at the UW School of Pharmacy to enter the MEDEX physician assistant training program with Class 34 in 2000. With that, Al became the first joint Pharm.D./PA-C to come through the UW Medicine [...]
Giving Back What Was Given To Me
This video portrait of MEDEX alumni Forest Hofer, PA (Seattle Class 14, 1981) touches on his professional and personal passions—emergency medicine, music, powerlifting and dogs. More than anything we learn that Forest loves working with physician assistant students. To date, he’s precepted more than 60 MEDEX students, deeply influencing their [...]
Advocating For Dental Access Despite His Profession
After a 10-year hiatus from dentistry, Dr. Louis Fiset broke ranks with his fellow dentists to focus on growing the dental therapist profession in Native Alaskan communities. The DENTEX program has been a collaboration between the UW MEDEX program and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC). Now, 10 years [...]
A 12-Year Plan To Transform PA Education
Since 2004 Dr. Linda Vorvick has worked for MEDEX Northwest, largely under the title of Director of Academic Affairs. Now moving on to another full-time job for the University of Washington, Linda reflects back on her 12 years with MEDEX and her accomplishments collaborating with a team of faculty and [...]
You Do What You Have To Do
Jeff Stubblefield spent considerable time traveling and working around the world— 21 years with the Air Force as an Independent Duty Medical Officer. Now a PA neurological surgical first assist at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, Jeff meets the challenges of delivering specialized medical care in a region [...]