Each year, hundreds of students from the University of Washington School of Medicine leave their classrooms and enter clinics and hospitals across Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho and Hawaii. During these rotations, they learn to apply their knowledge, sharpen their clinical skills and begin to understand what it means to care for patients.

Medical students. Physician assistant students. Physical and occupational therapists as well as prosthetic and orthotic trainees. All of them rely on one essential element to complete their education: a preceptor.

Precepting is a vital tradition in medical education. Preceptors are experienced providers — physician assistants, doctors, doctors of osteopathic medicine and nurse practitioners — who guide students through the realities of clinical care, sharing their knowledge, wisdom and compassion. Without them, clinical education and the future of medicine would cease to exist.

“Supervised clinical experience through precepting is a required cornerstone of medical education, ensuring future providers graduate with the skills, judgment and community connection that sustain the future of medicine,” says Jannelle Fukuji, PA-C’11, clinical coordinator for the UW MEDEX Tacoma campus.

Yet across the region, the number of available preceptors to accommodate student placements is shrinking. As providers face staffing shortages, rising patient demands and increasing administrative burdens, fewer feel they have the capacity to take on students. The result: a shortage of preceptors, placing a growing strain on UW Medicine’s clinical education system and limiting opportunities for future providers to train where they are needed most.

One student, one provider, one community

Jannelle Fukuji knows this challenge well. As a graduate of the UW MEDEX Northwest PA Program and in her current role with UW MEDEX Tacoma, she’s seen the impact of strong preceptorships from both sides.

Prior to becoming a physician assistant, Fukuji gained diverse experience — from retail to surgical technology — before pursuing her training at MEDEX Alaska, where she launched her PA career.

Her PA training took her to Haines, Alaska, where she trained under Noble Anderson, MD, the community’s family medicine provider. Immersed in the rhythm of a rural fishing town that transforms each summer into a hub for anglers, she discovered what it truly means to serve a community. It was more than a rotation; it was a defining moment.

“That preceptor shaped my entire career,” Fukuji says. “It wasn’t just about learning procedures and making diagnoses — it was about understanding what it means to serve, to lead and to be part of a community.”

Now, more than a decade later, she’s paying it forward, mentoring students herself and helping other providers across the region do the same in the precepting role. And while she sees firsthand how busy clinics and providers have become, she also sees what’s at stake.

“Placing every student requires extraordinary time, energy and outreach to secure willing preceptors,” Fukuji says. “That effort is what ensures future providers receive the training they need — and what keeps high-quality care flowing into our communities.”

Hands-on education, powered by practicing clinicians

Preceptors do far more than supervise. They mentor, model and inspire. They show students how to navigate the unpredictable nature of real-world medicine, how to communicate with patients and families and how to balance clinical judgment with compassion.

In return, many preceptors find that hosting students reinvigorates their own practice. Students bring curiosity, fresh thinking and a drive to learn. Their questions spark reflection, and their presence offers a reminder of why many providers entered medicine in the first place.

For clinics, precepting can also serve as an informal recruitment pipeline to evaluate future colleagues and attract early-career professionals who might choose to stay and serve in the same facilities, clinics and communities where they trained.

Precepting is a chance to give back, shaping the future of healthcare by guiding the next generation.

A growing need across the region

Across the School, clinical education teams are working hard to sustain a strong culture of teaching. They’re building relationships with alumni and expanding partnerships with health systems. At the same time, they’re seeking new ways to support preceptors through resources, guidance and coordination that make it easier for providers to become preceptors.

Still, the supply of preceptors struggles to keep up with the need.

Clinical coordinators across the region continue to face difficult decisions, especially in high-need areas like family medicine, emergency care, behavioral health and rural or underserved communities. Even as demand for healthcare workers increases, the training pipeline depends on enough clinicians being willing and able to teach.

And while UW’s classroom instruction ranks among the best in the nation, clinical training can’t happen without placements with experienced preceptors. The future of care depends not only on what students learn in lecture halls, but on the dedication of providers who open their clinics and their expertise to the next generation.

A chance to make a difference

For alumni and practicing clinicians, Fukuji’s message is simple: Even precepting for a couple of months out of the year can shape a student’s education and sustain the healthcare workforce your community relies on.

“This is bigger than me,” Fukuji says. “It’s about creating and providing the same opportunities that shaped my own path as a PA.

“Every provider remembers a great mentor. Precepting UW students is your chance to be that mentor — because even the most promising student can’t learn without someone willing to teach.”

Written by Patsy Cadwell