Faculty Spotlight: Matthew Smith
Matthew Smith is a physician assistant and teaching associate in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine.
He received his Master of Clinical Health Services (MCHS) from the University of Washington in 2015, and was honored with the John B. Coombs Leadership Award, which is presented to students who have become role models to their peers, assumed leadership responsibilities during their training, and carried out those responsibilities with integrity, cooperation and understanding.
Prior to medicine, Smith studied art (lighting design for theater, dance, and opera). He found his way to medicine on a circuitous path with many stops along the way, including working seasonally for a few years on the Yosemite Search and Rescue Team.
He is currently a member of the critical care Advance Practice Providers (APP) group at University of Washington Medical Center-Montlake (UWMC-ML), and practices in the Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and in the Medical ICU.
“I enjoy teaching point-of-care ultrasound, bedside procedures, and core critical care and hematology/oncology topics,” he says. “I also love the team-based approach to patient care in the intensive care unit - getting to work with incredible colleagues brings me immeasurable professional satisfaction. I appreciate the problem-solving involved in complicated clinical questions, opportunities to teach, and practicing primary palliative care.”
Smith also started and leads the 3 Wishes Project at UWMC-ML and is faculty advisor for the Virtual Bedside Concerts medical student group, which organizes virtual musical performances to hospitalized patients.
3 Wishes Project
Brought to University of Washington in 2022, the 3 Wishes Project (3WP) is an end-of-life program that aims improve the experience for patients, families, and healthcare team members by fulfilling wishes for a dying patient and their loved ones.
At its heart, this is a program that seeks to instill humanity into what can be a dehumanizing place and to spread and normalize compassion and kindness. He says his participation with this program ‘fills his cup’ and by taking care of others, he is taking care of himself.
“Starting the 3 Wishes Project has taken a village and I am so thankful to have been able to collaborate with many incredible multidisciplinary colleagues from UW Medicine and beyond,” he says.
“In the years that I’ve partnered with him, he has consistently dedicated himself to softening the deeply personal, important, and human experience of being a patient or family member during unimaginably difficult times that threaten patients’ autonomy and risk distress and disservice of dehumanization,” said Dr. Lisa Vande Vusse, who works with him in the ICU.
Smith hopes to grow the 3WP beyond its current footprint in the UWMC-Montlake Medical ICU, Oncology & Bone Marrow Transplant ICU, and Surgical ICU, to other clinical areas across our health system. He plans to continue to engage in programs that foster compassionate and humanized care, he says.
Personal life
“Together with an extraordinary wife, we have two amazing young children filled with curiosity and a big floppy labradoodle named Reggie,” he says. “We love spending time in the beautiful woods and water of the Pacific Northwest, exploring tide pools and rocky beaches, doing arts and crafts, and having mini dance parties in the living room.”
In his free time, he enjoys long distance backpacking, rock climbing, and baking pumpernickel bread.