We are delighted to announce that the Idaho Track of our department’s Psychiatry Residency Program will become a separate four-year psychiatry residency program based in Boise starting in July 2021! This means that we will have two psychiatry residency programs in our department – our existing Seattle-based program and the new UW Boise Psychiatry Residency.

The Idaho Track admitted its first residents in 2007. Four track residents per year spend the first two years of their training in Seattle and the final two years in Boise, Idaho. The Idaho Track has been very successful, recruiting nationally and exceeding its goal of having more than 50% of its graduates remain in Idaho to practice. Based on this success, the track has applied for and has received initial accreditation to become a separate four-year psychiatry residency program and will be recruiting this fall for residents to begin in the summer of 2021. The new program will admit first year residents and begin their education at the same time as the residents in the current Idaho Track complete their training over the next few years.

Kirsten Aaland, MD, Idaho Track Director, is the Program Director for the new UW Boise Psychiatry Residency. She has done an incredible job leading the development of this new program and working with her Associate Program Director Annie Kelly, MD, Boise psychiatry faculty, and the Boise Internal Medicine program to build high-quality new first- and second-year clinical rotations and an exciting new didactic curriculum. The program builds on the already excellent third- and fourth-year rotations in Boise and the dedicated, highly skilled faculty supervisors and teachers involved in the Idaho Track. The expansion to a four-year program has also crucially depended on the vision and support of the program’s financial partners – the State of Idaho, the Boise VA, St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center, and Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center – and their investment in preparing expert psychiatrists for Idaho. We are proud that our department and UW Graduate Medical Education have supported, and will continue to support, the Idaho Track and now the new UW Boise Psychiatry Residency!