The University of California, San Diego School of Medicine is the graduate
medical school
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, professional school, or forms a part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, ...
of the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...
, a
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
land-grant research university
A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are "the key sites of Knowledge production modes, knowledge production", along with "intergenerational ...
in
La Jolla, California. It was the third medical school in the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...
system, after those established at
UCSF and
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
, and is the only medical school in the
San Diego
San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
metropolitan area. It is closely affiliated with the medical centers that are part of
UC San Diego Health.
History
In 1962, the fledgling university began searching for a dean to head its planned medical school, which would be the first such institution in
San Diego County.
[A Dean of the Medical School of the San Diego campus is sought](_blank)
October 31, 1962, University Communications & Public Relations Materials: News Releases. Special Collection & Archives, UC San Diego Library The concept was based on the successful models of public medical education and practice in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
and
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
. The man eventually chosen was Joseph Stokes III, an expert in the fields of
preventive medicine and
cardiovascular epidemiology.
Stokes played a key role in aggressively recruiting leading physician scientists of its era and rapidly building the institute's reputation as an elite medical school. Faculty members recruited to the university by Stokes included
Y.C. Fung, who would later be considered the father of
bioengineering
Biological engineering or
bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number ...
.
His efforts were aided by the campus's existing strengths in the biological sciences and close proximity to the famed
Salk Institute.
The basic science building was the first building constructed on the School of Medicine grounds, which were east of
Revelle College and north of New Miramar Road (later renamed La Jolla Village Drive). The first cohort of medical students, 39 men and 8 women, enrolled in 1968,
[ while construction on the clinical science building and adjacent 100-bed Veterans Administration Hospital were still ongoing. The inaugural class in 1971 achieved the highest score in the country on the National Board of Medical Examiners Step 1 Examination, propelling the new school into the national spotlight. The school's first degrees were conferred upon them in 1972.][Medical School](_blank)
Triton Times, May 26, 1967, UCSD Guardian. Special Collection & Archives, UC San Diego Library Clinical rotations took place at the UC San Diego Medical Center, then known as Hillcrest County Hospital, which had been constructed by the county in 1963 and leased to the university in 1966.
Research and innovation efforts were successful early in the school's history. By 1969, UCSD was a leader in the novel technique of pulmonary thromboendarterectomy. In 1972, faculty members experimented with the use of early echocardiograms.
In 1973, Helen Ranney joined the faculty, and would become the first American woman to be chair of the department of medicine at a medical school.[
In 1982, UCSD opened one of the first clinics for the treatment of HIV and AIDS.][
In 2005, the UCSD Moores Cancer Center opened.][
In 2021, UCSD received $2.6M to expand Programs in Medical Education (PRIME) focused on health equity and Indigenous health.]
Campus
The School of Medicine neighborhood occupies 54 acres on the southern portion of the main campus. It is bordered by Gilman Drive and Revelle College to the west, Gilman Drive and University Center to the north, Villa La Jolla Drive and the San Diego VA Medical Center to the east, and La Jolla Village Drive to the south. The main entrances to the campus are via Library Walk for pedestrians and Osler Lane for vehicles. The neighborhood's buildings are arranged around a series of three green spaces: the School of Medicine Quad, the Ceremonial Green, and the Academic Mall. The School of Medicine quad is an informal, grassy area which channels pedestrians from Revelle College and Library Walk toward Sally T. WongAvery Library and the adjacent academic and research facilities. The Ceremonial Green is a quadrantal lawn which is used for graduation ceremonies and other outdoor functions in front of the Medical Education and Telemedicine Building. The Academic Mall is a structured, flat quadrangle with gathering spaces and academic and research facilities along its east and west edges, and the Rita Atkinson Residences (medical student housing) at its southern terminus.
Most of the campus buildings serve an academic, research, or administrative purpose. Exceptions are the Rita Atkinson Residences, which houses 450 graduate students in a nine-story, two-tower structure, and the Club Med dining facility at the base of the telemedicine building. The campus features two Stuart Collection works. ''Terrace'', by Jackie Ferrara, consists of three tiled terraces which flow into one another to connect both wings of the Cellular and Molecular Medicine facility. It is the ninth work in the collection. The fourteenth work, ''Standing'' by Kiki Smith, is a nude bronze woman raised on a concrete eucalyptus trunk trickling water from her hands to its roots. It was the artist's first permanent outdoor sculpture.
Student life
The School of Medicine offers several programs and services for medical students, including the Healthy Student Program, the Office of Educational Support Services, the Careers in Medicine Program, Faculty Mentors, the Office of Student Affairs advisors, the Big Sib program, Senior Mentors, and Senior Faculty Advisors. In addition, medical students run nearly 40 active organizations.
Admissions and rankings
Admission to the UC San Diego School of Medicine M.D. program is among the most selective in the country. For the class entering Fall 2015, 253 of the 7,456 applicants were admitted. This 3.4% acceptance rate is the tenth-lowest of 170 schools surveyed by '' U.S. News & World Report'' nationally. Of admits who choose to matriculate, the average undergraduate GPA is 3.73 and the average MCAT composite score is 34.2 out of 45. The most popular residency and specialty programs are internal medicine, anesthesiology, dermatology, obstetrics & gynecology, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryngology, pediatrics, psychiatry, radiology (diagnostic) and surgery.
The UC San Diego School of Medicine is ranked 18th in the 2017 edition of ''U.S. News & World Report'' for research and ranked 12th in primary care. The "Drug and Alcohol Abuse" research program is ranked 10th overall. The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities
The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong Universi ...
'' ranks UC San Diego 20th in the world for clinical medicine and pharmacy.
Curriculum
In 2010, the school altered its curriculum, and designated the plan "Integrated Scientific Curriculum", to emphasize ambulatory experience and better prepare students for medical practice. The first two years consist of classroom learning based on topical units, followed by two years of clinical rotations.[
The Independent Study Project (ISP) has long been a cornerstone of the elective curriculum at the UCSD School of Medicine. Students are required to complete a project under the direction of an ISP committee usually consisting of three or more School of Medicine faculty.
]
Research
The school operates and contributes to several organized clinical research units, including the Moores Cancer Center, the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, the Stein Institute for Research on Aging, the AntiViral Research Center, the Center of AIDS Research, the Pediatric Pharmacology Research Unit, the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny, and the Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.
Notable people
Notable alumni
* Margaret Allen (M.D. 1974) became the first female heart transplant surgeon.
* Brian Druker (M.D. 1981) discovered the drug imatinib (Gleevec) for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia.
* Khaled Hosseini (M.D. 1993) is an American novelist and physician.
* Geoff Abrams (M.D. 2006) is an American professional tennis player.
* Ryan Abbott (M.D. 2005) is British-American academic and physician
* Michael R. Irwin is an American psychiatrist and academic
Notable faculty
The school's faculty have included eight Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine:
* Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the Nucleic acid doub ...
(1962) – J.W. Kieckhefer Distinguished Research Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
* Robert W. Holley (1968) – Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
* George Palade (1974) – Dean of the School of Medicine
* Renato Dulbecco (1975) – Professor Emeritus, Department of Pathology
* Roger Guillemin (1977) – Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
* Sydney Brenner
Sydney Brenner (13 January 1927 – 5 April 2019) was a South African biologist. In 2002, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and Sir John E. Sulston. Brenner made significant contributions to wo ...
(2002) – Adjunct Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
* Roger Tsien (2008) – Professor, Department of Pharmacology
* Bruce Beutler (2011) – Professor, Scripps Research Institute
Other notable faculty include:
* Randy Davison – Actor who trains diagnostics with medical students.
* William Nyhan – Pediatrician who first described what is now called the Lesch–Nyhan syndrome
* Kenneth Kaushansky – Former Chairman and Helen Ranney Professor of the Department of Medicine; Current Dean of the Stony Brook University School of Medicine
* John B. West – Current Pulmonary Faculty; led the American Medical Research Expedition to Everest in 1981; Former NASA chairman of the Science Verification Committee in 1983; American Physiological Society (APS) president in 1984; author of Respiratory Physiology: The Essentials
Community affiliations
Primary teaching hospitals affiliated with this medical school where clinical teaching or training is carried out: Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego Naval Regional Medical Center, San Diego VA Medical Center, Scripps Green Hospital, Scripps Mercy Hospital, and UC San Diego Health.
Clinical teaching and training at the UCSD School of Medicine are carried out at seven primary teaching hospitals: Rady Children's Hospital, the San Diego Naval Regional Medical Center, the San Diego VA Medical Center, Scripps Green Hospital, Scripps Mercy Hospital, and UC San Diego Health. The school's affiliation with UC San Diego Health includes all its entities: UC San Diego Medical Center, Jacobs Medical Center, Moores Cancer Center, Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, Shiley Eye Institute, and various outpatient clinics.
School of Medicine researchers also work alongside scientists from several other medical research entities. These affiliations include the Perdana University Graduate School of Medicine, La Jolla Institute for Immunology, Rady Children's Hospital, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego Supercomputer Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Scripps Research, St. Vincent de Paul Village Family Health Center, UC San Diego Health, Indian Health Service, and the VA San Diego Healthcare System.
Student-Run Free Clinic
The UCSD Student-Run Free Clinic Project, in partnership with the community, provides accessible, quality health care for the underserved in respectful environments in which students, health professionals, patients and community members learn from each other. It seeks to sustain health through free medical and preventive care, health education and access to social service. It has locations in downtown San Diego, Pacific Beach, National City, and Lemon Grove.
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uc San Diego School Of Medicine
Medicine, School of
Medical schools in California
Universities and colleges in San Diego
Educational institutions established in 1968
1968 establishments in California
School of Medicine