Re: MedEd at UC Merced Receives Major Support and Next Steps
To: All campus
Sept. 23, 2020
Dear Campus Community,
This pandemic has focused ever more sharply our attention on the limited health-care resources of the Central Valley. UC Merced and our partners are poised to begin the next steps toward addressing this longstanding concern.
In July 2020, UC Merced and UCSF received $15 million of permanent annual appropriation from the State to begin work on a joint medical education program between UC Merced, UCSF-Fresno and UCSF. On Sept. 17, the UC Board of Regents allotted UC Merced funds to begin planning our Health, Behavioral Sciences and Medical Education Building.
UC Merced will develop a BS-MD degree pathway that will dovetail with and enhance our existing pre-health training pathways and, ultimately, bring the first two years of medical education to our campus.
Catherine R. Lucey, UCSF’s executive vice dean and vice dean for education and Peter Chin Hong, associate dean for regional campuses at UCSF, assembled a leadership team from UC Merced, UCSF-Fresno and UCSF. The team has been charged to propose a formal Charter for the Expansion of Medical Education in the Central Valley, with the three institutions as founding partners. The charter will lay out the mission, vision and value, goals and objectives that the project is limited to as well as specify out-of-scope issues and timelines. It will include a ten-year workplan with clear expectations for each step.
Thelma Hurd, our director of medical education, and Betsy Dumont, dean of the School of Natural Sciences, are the UC Merced representatives on the leadership team. In the coming weeks they will be organizing and convening preliminary work group(s) to discuss the UCSF BRIDGES medical curriculum and wrap-around elements of the BS pathway that would harmonize the undergraduate and graduate components of the proposed medical program.
Broad participation and support from faculty, staff and administrators will be critical to the success of realizing a joint medical education program that will help serve the needs of the Valley.
Sincerely,
Juan Sánchez Muñoz, Ph.D.
Chancellor
Gregg Camfield, Ph.D.
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
