UC Merced Magazine | Volume XVIII, Issue IV

Campus Gets the Go-ahead for Med Ed Building At their Nov. 15 meeting, the University of California Board of Regents gave final approval for the construction of a new medical education building at UC Merced. The four-story building, designed by the firm ZGF, will have 203,500 square feet of instructional, academic office, research and community facing space and common areas. The project has a price tag of $300 million, with funding coming from a combination of State General Fund appropriations — pledged by Gov. Gavin Newsom in a campus press conference in October 2021 — campus budget and donor gifts. “We are very pleased by the regents’ show of support for medical education at UC Merced,” said UC Merced Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz. “The lack of quality healthcare options in the region is well-documented, and this new building will enable UC Merced to train physicians uniquely qualified to address the Valley’s health needs.” The new facility will be home to UC Merced’s medical education program, which was developed in partnership with UCSF and UCSF Fresno and had its first cohort of students begin classes this fall. It will also house: • The Departments of Psychological Sciences and Public Health • The Health Sciences Research Institute • Allied healthcare-related programs (developed in partnership with community colleges) • A range of medical education and general assignment learning environments • Specialty learning spaces for medical education, general assignment classrooms, and class laboratories to support several new and existing academic programs This project will comply with the University of California Sustainable Practices Policy, which establishes goals for green building, clean energy, transportation, climate protection, facilities operations, zero waste, procurement, food service and water systems. Supporting UC Merced’s carbon neutrality status, the building will be run entirely on clean electricity, without the use of natural gas. Construction is anticipated to begin in spring 2024 with completion slated for fall 2026. Current growth projections show the facility serving approximately 2,220 undergraduates by 2030. Read more about the Medical Education Building in the spring/summer 2024 of UC Merced Magazine.

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What do medical students learn from clinical rotations in an underserved FRPPXQLW\"b Wiebe: ey learn to develop trust with patients. Just prescribing medicine isn’t enough. ey need to make recommendations a patient can carry out in real life, in an underserved community. at’s the art of medicine. Vener: For trainees working in underserved settings, you really feel like you’re making a di erence.

What are your hopes and expectations IRU 6-9 35,0( "b

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, associate dean of regional campuses, UCSF School of Medicine: We hope this will lead to getting not just the Valley’s brightest of the bright, but people who wouldn't have thought about medicine before, so we can make them the best physicians they can be for the communities they serve.

Banh: Most people don't understand how di erent we are. UCSF Fresno answered a need for graduate medical education in the Valley. UC Merced is the newest UC on the block. On one end are graduating internists and surgeons. On the other are undergrads and grad students. SJV PRIME+ is building a bridge between them. Vener: My goal for this is that eventually some medical professional out there in, I don’t know, say Bakers eld, says to a young person, “Oh, you’re interested in health care? I hear UC Merced has a strong pathway to a professional career.”

How can Valley communities and patients benefit from physicians with Valley roots? Burke: ey are acutely aware of issues common to their community. For instance, a number of my students, when they were younger, served as interpreters at medical appointments. ey talk about how the doctors would o en leave their parents or grandparents out of the discussion because they didn’t speak English, and how demeaning that was. So, somebody who comes in with that knowledge will know how to work with an interpreter appropriately.

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