UW-GU Highlight: Sarah Matousek, Ph.D.

Several faculty members teach at both Gonzaga and the University of Washington School of Medicine. Here's a Q&A with one of them. 

What do you enjoy teaching most at Gonzaga and why?  
It’s so hard to choose! Public health is so fun to teach. I suppose I would go with health leadership and management, since it’s what I did for the last 10 years in my consulting career. I’ve been able to incorporate real world examples into our learning environment and do a lot of scenario-building with the students.   close second is global health, because it has been a longtime passion area.  

What do you primarily teach at the UWSOM and what do you enjoy most about it?  
I teach in the medicine, health and society block on topics related to population health, health care finance and reform, and quality improvement. I love that our medical students are getting a more well-rounded education around these topics so they can be systems thinkers in their eventual clinical roles.  

Where do you see potential for collaboration among GU and UW students? Do you have examples of seeing this in action?  
I’m glad you asked! Just this morning I had my leadership and management class join the medical students for our small group work on a hospital quality improvement project because the curriculum for both classes overlapped. In addition, I was just awarded a McKinstry Fellowship, which will fund research involving both UW med students and GU public health students this summer at two of our rural community-based hospitals. They will be able to work together all summer and eventually present our collective work together. My hope is that we can also identify more creative collaborative opportunities for them to work together on health impact projects in our local community, and I’m working with Katherine Brackmann on some ideas related to that.  

How might you benefit personally or professionally through affiliation with both GU and UW?  
I find that being on faculty at both institutions has significant benefits. I have access to the full resources at both universities, which means that I can get an IRB application through relatively easily at GU due to the smaller size of the university. At UW, I was able to submit a grant to Avista for some community-based work with the help of grant writers in Seattle. We have great leadership for mentoring in both places, and I find that the missions and values overlap in ways that align with my own personal mission.   

How do you see the partnership providing value to students and/or to the community?  
We have just scratched the surface of what can be done through this partnership. We have a beautiful building where everyone can come together. We are just now working on a broader partnership research strategy and opportunities for students from both schools to do impactful work together. I think the local community can and will benefit from our collective strengths in coming together for service and research locally. The McKinstry fellowship is just one avenue. I envision a small space in the Partnership building where we can gather to share ideas, find funding, and do impactful projects that eventually grow to scale. We can do this best with a collaborative spirit that goes even beyond these two universities. We have three other local academic institutions, community-based organizations, local public institutions, and private organizations to think about partnerships with as well.  

If you could help “fix” one thing in American health care, what might that be, and why?  
Oh, wow. So many things. If I had to choose one, it would be to eliminate the complexity in the system that creates the need for health care providers to treat patients differently based on their insurance status or ability to pay. We have created a system where providers have to make impossible choices instead of just doing what they know is right for their patients. And there are incentives to do less to pocket money on the payer side. I’m not saying universal insurance or health care is the answer, but we can’t keep doing things this way.   

Husky or Bulldog?  
I asked chat GBT. Haha. I feel no loyalty more on one side or the other!

Read about another joint faculty member: Kevin Measor.