On Friday, June 5, 2026, CLIME hosted its annual CLIME Together Symposium at the UW Waterfront Activities Center. This year’s theme, Community and Collaboration in Medical Education, brought together educators, scholars, and leaders from across the WWAMI region for a morning of conversation, reflection, and connection.
Keynote: The Essential Role of Decentering
The symposium opened with a keynote from Dr. Anna Cianciolo, Professor of Medical Education at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and Editor-in-Chief of Teaching and Learning in Medicine. Dr. Cianciolo introduced the concept of decentering, the practice of holding space for others, reflecting critically on what we hear, and taking meaningful action, as essential to building a truly inclusive academic medical community. Her talk challenged attendees to look beyond activities and programs and toward the structural changes that allow community to flourish.
Panel Discussion: Building One WWAMI Community
Dr. Cianciolo’s keynote set the stage for a rich panel discussion featuring voices from across WWAMI. Panelists Molly Jackson, MD (Assistant Dean for the Colleges, UW School of Medicine), Jay Erickson, MD (Assistant Dean for the Montana WWAMI Clinical Phase), John Willford, PhD (WWAMI Assistant Director, Wyoming), and Melissa “Moe” Hagman, MD, MACP (Program Director, Boise Internal Medicine Residency) explored how a shared academic community can feel truly present across every WWAMI site, the local barriers their communities face in participating in shared endeavors, and what structural changes could make UW’s academic medical community more genuinely inclusive of the full WWAMI region.
Abstract Presentations
The symposium also featured oral and small group presentations from educators and researchers across the region.
Oral presentations were delivered by Sami Elrazky, a first-year medical student, on research equity and the rising pressure to publish in medical school and Clinton Olivas, MD on resident physician experiences in inpatient behavioral emergencies.
Small group table discussions featured work from Emily Godfrey, MD, MPH on nutrition and lifestyle medicine curriculum gaps; John Willford, PhD on crowdsourcing innovation in curriculum design and delivery; Anita Chopra, MD, FACP on LEARN, a multidisciplinary curriculum for Long COVID education; Ana Paula Santos Lima, MD on climate change ethics in radiology training; Julia Becke, MD on navigating clinical uncertainty through improvisation; and Jamie Ott, DO on a pilot neuroradiology review program for residents.
The day closed with lunch and a sense of renewed energy around the shared work of building community across five states.
A recording of the keynote and panel discussion will be posted soon. Check back for updates