Anatomy of Achievement

The UCSD School of Medicine celebrates 40 years of science and service

IF THERE’S A SINGLE ENTITY to be credited with laying the foundation for San Diego’s emergence as a major life sciences research center, our booming biotech industry and exceptional local healthcare, it’s the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. More impressive than the school’s top national rankings (U.S. News & World Report ranks it fifth among public medical schools)—and the mindboggling amount of scientific innovation born from its campus—is the short period of time in which it’s all occurred. The school has much to celebrate on its 40th birthday in November, including the groundbreaking for a new $65 million medical education building, curriculum enhancements and the continued expansion of healthcare programs serving the San Diego community.

On the Map

Forty years ago, Dr. John West was recruited to join an elite group of scientists and academicians as a founding faculty member of the brand-new UCSD School of Medicine. A renowned expert on high-altitude physiology, he had been studying the effects of gravity on the human lung at NASA’s Ames Research Center when he accepted the invitation. “At the time,” says West, “I wasn’t aware of exactly what was happening in San Diego and didn’t think of it as an academic center.”

Roger Revelle, the renowned oceanographer and former director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who, in the early 1950s, led the initiative for a new University of California campus in San Diego, had already recruited some of the top names in science: Nobel laureate Harold Urey, physicists Keith Brueckner and James Arnold and geneticist David Bonner, who founded the UCSD biology department. Bonner proposed the idea of organizing the medical school as an integral part of the campus and merging the science faculties with those of the medical school to promote a spirit of collaboration and free flow of information. That early vision was central to the medical school’s growth into a leading research center. Another key to its success was the caliber of scientists and researchers recruited to join as founding faculty—a venerable who’s who in medicine and research that, in addition to West, included William Nyhan (genetics and pediatrics), Daniel Steinberg (metabolism and endocrinology), Louis Gluck (neonatology), Marshall Orloff (surgery), J. Edwin Seegmiller (biochemical genetics) and Averill Liebow and Kurt Benirschke (pathology).

“The medical school grew from the top down,” says West. “It all started with a stellar group of faculty, and the tradition has continued. In the space of 40 years, the school has developed a preeminence that’s recognized all over the world.”

An “Unprecedented Trajectory”

Dr. David Brenner has witnessed first-hand the “unprecedented trajectory” of the medical school since his arrival on the UCSD campus in 1985 for a fellowship. Today, as vice chancellor for health sciences and dean of the medical school, Brenner leads the School of Medicine, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, UCSD Medical Center and the UCSD Medical Group. He oversees more than 900 healthsciences faculty physicians, pharmacists and scientists; 7,500 staff; more than 600 medical and pharmacy students; and a health system that cares for some 132,000 patients annually.

“Just in my own career,” he says, “it has been a remarkable transformation, and incredibly productive.” According to Brenner, who was named dean in February 2007, the surrounding community has been integral to that transformation.

“The La Jolla/Torrey Pines Mesa area has been an incredible place for our faculty to be productive,” he says, alluding to the proximity of premier research institutions such as the Scripps Research Institute and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research. “There’s a culture of collaboration you won’t find on the East Coast. We have people from all over the world come here to understand how we’ve been able to accomplish so much in such a short amount of time.”

But that progress hasn’t come without formidable challenges. “Because we are a state medical school, we are always concerned about cuts to the state budget,” says Brenner. “We feel the effects of changes in healthcare—the level of funding for Medi-Cal and Medicare—because we provide 38 percent of under- and uncompensated care in San Diego County. We’re honored to do this, but it makes us more vulnerable to support from the state.”

Brenner also says it can be difficult competing for top students and faculty with schools like Harvard and Stanford, which have enormous endowments. “We’re at a competitive disadvantage because we don’t have those resources,” he says. Still, admission to the school is “remarkably competitive,” and the school consistently ranks among the top in research funding (total federal, state and industry research funding amounts to $389 million annually), a testament to the exceptional research being performed here.

Another testament to the innovativeness of school faculty: the local biotech industry. San Diego is home to the third-largest biotech cluster in the world (behind the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston), which generates an estimated $9 billion in economic impact for the region. Brenner estimates that one-third of local biomedical companies are the direct outgrowth of faculty and alumni research.

“Having a medical school of the caliber of the UCSD School of Medicine is integral to the success of the local research community,” says Joe Panetta, president and CEO of industry trade association Biocom. “We take the research that’s done there and translate it into therapies and products. Without the medical school, we’d be missing a key aspect of what it takes to be successful as a biotech cluster.”

Looking Ahead

Dr. Maria Savoia, vice dean of medical education, is spearheading the planning for an 85,000-square-foot medical education/telemedicine facility, slated to break ground in November, and is overseeing curriculum changes to help UCSD better prepare the physician of the future. “We are training our graduates to be scientifically astute and compassionate in the care of patients,” she says.

The class size was recently increased from 122 to 134, an addition of 12 students who will take an extra year to specifically study—and work to resolve —disparities in healthcare. “There are areas where healthcare is not equal for women, African-Americans, the disabled and socioeconomically disadvantaged,” says Savoia. “These students will be trained to serve in underserved communities, with a telemedicine [providing medical expertise remotely] focus.”

Savoia believes the building scheduled to break ground next month will take the medical school to the next level. A surgery teaching laboratory will house state-of-the-art facilities to develop and teach innovative surgical techniques. Trained surgeons will use this facility to continue to hone their skills in nonclinical settings and to obtain recertification of technical skills. The medical school has already secured two robotic systems that will establish the surgery teaching laboratory as a regional robotics training center.

“Forty is an interesting time in a person’s life,” says Savoia, reflecting on the medical school’s four decades. “You’ve come through adolescence and the trials and tribulations of your 20s and 30s, when you are figuring out who you are. It’s the most productive and most exciting time in your life.”

Do you like what you read? Subscribe to San Diego Magazine »