Office: SHSB 320P

Phone: 509-358-7795

E-mail: mccajf@uw.edu

Office: SHSB 320P

Phone: 509-358-7796

E-mail: djharper@uw.edu

UW Regional Deans Teach in Spokane

Drs. John McCarthy and Deborah Harper are the University of Washington School of Medicine's assistant deans for regional affairs, based on the WSU Spokane campus. They teach and advise students. They work to find clerkship and residency opportunities for students in eastern and central Washington. They act as liaisons between WSU and the UW.

John McCarthy, M.D.

Dr. McCarthy is the WWAMI clinical coordinator for eastern and central Washington.

He's a native Washingtonian, born in Spokane. He spent his formative years in Tacoma. Dr. McCarthy has his Bachelor’s in Science from Santa Clara University, a Master’s in Counseling Psychology from Gonzaga and his medical degree from University of Washington. He completed his residency in family medicine in 1993 with an emphasis on rural medicine. He worked for 14 years in Tonasket (a community of 1,000 in northern Washington), performing full spectrum family medicine, including operative obstetrics and emergency room staffing. He was also the medical director for Okanogan Home Health and Hospice’s Hospice program and Okanogan County's public health officer. During his medical career, Dr. McCarthy has been a small business owner, part of a multi-specialty group and an employee of a large primary care practice.

He instructs first-year medical students at WSU Spokane’s Riverpoint campus, works as residency faculty for Family Medicine Spokane, continues as Okanogan County's public health officer and provides patient care as an urgent care physician in Spokane. He is a past president for the Washington Academy of Family Physicians and continues to serve as a delegate to the American Academy of Family Physicians. He is passionate about the value family medicine offers to the medical arena. He is an avid cyclist and Nordic skier.

Deborah Harper, M.D.

Dr. Harper is the other WWAMI clinical coordinator for Eastern and Central Washington.

She lived throughout the West as a child, moving with her father’s job as a cereal chemist for General Mills. Her mother worked as a bookkeeper and became an accountant in her sixties. Dr. Harper graduated medical school from the University of Illinois, Chicago, in 1980 and completed her pediatric residency at Cook County Hospital, Chicago in 1984. She has worked in Central and South America and continues to enjoy working with medical mission groups. She is a pediatrician at Group Health. She has also worked as an expert in child abuse and neglect since 1991 for Partners with Families and Children (formerly the Deaconess Regional Center for Child Abuse and Neglect).

She works with first-year medical students on the Riverpoint Campus and with third and fourth-year students in her office. She is a past president of the Washington State Medical Association.

She and her husband, Bob Gilles, have three sons.