UC Merced Magazine | Volume XVI, Issue I

BUILDING HEALTH CARE Capacity in the Valley

State to back Health, Behaviorial Sciences and Medical Education facility at UC Merced Medical education is a point of pride for the University of California. The system boasts six highly ranked medical schools with more than 3,500 total students — in Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego and San Francisco, the latter of which also has a branch campus in Fresno. The UC’s youngest campus, in Merced, opened to undergraduates in 2005 and by fall 2006 had hired a FRQVXOWDQW WR SODQ IRU LWV IXWXUH PHGLFDO VFKRRO Ǻb D concept that was embedded in UC Merced’s 2009 Long Range Development Plan. Preparation for a medical education program sat on the back burner, though, as the Merced campus focused on building out the Merced 2020 Project to prepare for growing its student population. UC Merced continued to

build out expertise in field such as public health, particularly rural public health, and psychology, and the university’s thoroughgoing focus on sustainability is of course, at its base, about the health and future of humanity. More than a quarter of the university’s faculty are affiliated with the Health Sciences Research Institute, including its subsidiary Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center and California Valley Fever Network Focusedmedical education planning kicked into higher gear in August 2020, with initial discussions with UCSF-Fresno and its mother campus yielding a firm plan that now foresees future doctors spending eight years learning in the Valley, progressing from a bachelor of science in Merced to a USCF doctorate in medicine; the BS-to-MD program will enroll its first undergraduates in fall 2023, with a focus on recruiting students from the Central Valley. “We know from the research literature that medical professionals are more likely to establish practices in the place they were educated and underwent their residency,” noted Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz.

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