Twenty-one students from the Wyoming-WWAMI Medical Education Program on the University of Wyoming campus received their medical degrees in a part-virtual, part in-person ceremony on May 22.

Wyoming’s newest physicians include Olivia Rogers and Giandor Saltz of Powell and Madeleine Birch, Jackson Schmidt and Ethan Slight of Cody.

Saltz graduated in neurology and has been accepted for a four-year residency at Univerity Hospital in Augusta, Georgia. She will begin work in pediatric neurology there, followed by a one-year fellowship at the same hospital. 

Saltz is the daughter of Katia Davis of Powell and Roger Saltz of New Mexico. She is largely a product of the Powell school system, but graduated abroad through a student exchange program of the Rotary Club. 

Meanwhile, Rogers has started an internal medicine residency at the University of Arizona — Phoenix. A 2011 graduate of Powell High School, she is the daughter of Steve and Cindy Rogers of Powell.

The medical degrees reflect two years of the foundations phase of their education in the University of Wyoming College of Health Sciences, followed by two years of clinical work throughout the WWAMI region (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho). The WWAMI program brings students to the region to serve as practicing physicians for three years in exchange for a portion of their tuition and expenses at medical school.

The degrees are awarded through the University of Washington School of Medicine. Typically, the school hosts has a graduation ceremony at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, but the in-person ceremony was canceled for the second year in a row due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Drs. Heidi Hanekamp and Sarah Maze contacted the Wyoming-WWAMI office when the University of Washington School of Medicine announced that its annual ceremony was canceled and requested that the ceremony for Wyoming-WWAMI graduates be done in person on the campus of the University of Wyoming. Tim Robinson, director of Wyoming-WWAMI, helped secure the UW Union’s Yellowstone Ballroom, where there was plenty of room to socially distance.

“Our faculty and staff worked hard to pull the event off,” Robinson said. “It was wonderful having the opportunity to get these excellent students back together as a class, and every one of our graduates this year was able to participate in the ceremony.”

Dr. Paul Johnson, Wyoming-WWAMI alumnus and otolaryngologist with the Ivinson Medical Group, served as the keynote speaker for the graduation ceremony and began by noting the challenges these students had overcome.

“... These past 14 months of the COVID-19 pandemic brought incredible challenges to our lives while trying to learn and provide medical care to our patients,” Johnson said. “I congratulate all of you for coming through these unique challenges and know you will be better physicians for it.”

Dr. Yvette Haeberle, WWAMI clinical curriculum director, led students in reciting the Physician’s Oath, formally referred to as the Hippocratic Oath. The oath represents a binding agreement that physicians conduct themselves properly and in the care of their patients.

Following their graduation, the medical students will begin their residencies at university teaching hospitals throughout the United States.