Delivering state-of-the-art, lifesaving care to a broad spectrum of patients… Pioneering new treatments and cures for devastating diseases…Educating and training the medical and pharmaceutical leaders of tomorrow…This is the power of academic medicine, and in San Diego this combination of missions defines UC San Diego Health Sciences.
Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences and Dean of the School of Medicine David Brenner, M.D., is committed to building upon UCSD’s clinical excellence, while expanding its research and academic programs through growth and collaboration. These multiple missions will create an explosion of medical innovation and strengthen the university’s already formidable presence as a major center for patient care, and leading-edge basic and translational research.
Health Sciences encompasses the School of Medicine; the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and the Medical Center, a comprehensive health care system with two hospitals and a network of outpatient and emergency care programs. As the region’s only academic medical care system, UCSD Medical Center utilizes innovative treatments and technology to deliver compassionate patient care.
A 2007 Medical Center initiative aims to further reduce errors and improve service by issuing a bar-coded bracelet to each hospitalized patient. The health care provider scans the wristband with a portable computer to ensure the correct patient is receiving the correct medication.
UCSD hospitals were among the first in the country to institute a computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system, enabling a doctor to enter a prescription order online in a program linked directly to the pharmacy’s computer system. When the pharmacist has validated the order, the medication is distributed through an automated dispensing system used on all nursing units.
For many years, the School of Medicine has admitted 122 students into its first-year class. Beginning in fall 2007, the school will enroll an additional 12 entering students, all of whom will participate in the PRIME-HEq curriculum. The five-year, dual-degree program will allow students to examine issues related to health care equity, with the goal of eliminating health disparities among all segments of the population.
PRIME-HEq students in their fifth year will pursue a degree to complement their M.D., such as a master’s in public health, healthcare leadership, advanced studies in law and medicine, or clinical research. The curriculum will also include telemedicine training and research, with information technologies providing high-tech alternatives for reaching remote communities that lack health care services, or for bringing health care into the patient’s home through Internet outreach and educational programming. In May 2007 the School of Medicine received a $1 million grant from the California Telemedicine & eHealth Center (CTEC) to establish a Southern California Telemedicine Learning Center.
At the five-year-old Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, a new program in Marine Chemistry and Natural Products is underway. Skaggs School researchers with joint appointments at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography are investigating the therapeutic potential of natural marine products, with the goal of developing new pharmaceuticals from the sea to treat medical conditions ranging from inflammation to cancer. The addition in late 2006 of one of the country’s largest and most powerful mass spectrometers, housed in the new Pharmaceutical Sciences building, will allow researchers to gather genomic information in ways never before possible.
Partnerships with San Diego’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries enhance the clinical and research programs of the Skaggs School and offer unique training opportunities. Students prepare for a multitude of career choices, including hospital and clinical pharmacy practice, community pharmacy, drug therapy management, and drug development. More than 50 percent of the first two graduating classes have entered postgraduate residency training, a rate five times the national average.