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BOISE - A four-year psychiatric residency with clinical locations in both Boise and Seattle is eyeing Portneuf Medical Center as a potential site for teaching its fourth-year students.

Larry Dewey, chief of the psychiatric service at Boise's Veterans Affairs Medical Center, said he is pursuing an agreement with PMC to have the final year of the residency installed into the local hospital's behavioral health services. He said he has spent the past two years traveling between Pocatello and Boise to develop the proposal and is targeting a July 2009 start date for the residency.

The residency was highlighted last month during an interim legislative committee's meeting on medical education. The committee, which recently recommended the further development of Idaho State University's medical education model, invited officials with a number of other residencies to speak about the existing programs helping Idaho retain health professionals.

"What we're hoping to do is that during their fourth year, they can do some of their training outside of Boise and go into various other sites," Dewey said. "And one of the places that we have been actively talking with is the Portneuf Medical Center."

The residency, called the Idaho and University of Washington Advanced Clinician Psychiatry Residency, requires participants to spend the first half of their training in Seattle and the second half in Boise. The residency's clinical sites in Boise are at Boise State University's Student Health Services, the St. Luke's and St. Alphonsus regional medical centers and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Dewey said expanding the residency outside Boise allows the program to distribute more psychiatrists throughout the Gem State, which has one of the lowest numbers of psychiatrists per capita. He said Idaho has six psychiatrists per 100,000 people while the national average is more than 14 per capita.

"I think the program should expand so it can address the psychiatric needs in the state," Dewey said.

So far, the program is in its third year and has six residents in training.

Dewey estimates the residency will build a $1.2 million operating budget by the time it becomes fully staffed. He's looking to both PMC and Idaho State University for additional financial support. He wouldn't discuss further cost details but said the PMC-based residency will start with one resident and hopefully stretch to three participants per year.

Part of the PMC residency will also send residents to do some work and training at State Hospital South in Blackfoot.

Officials with PMC's Behavioral Health Services could not be reached for comment Tuesday.