By the time Commencement arrives, students across our UC San Diego Health Sciences schools — including the more than 650 who will graduate this year — have already begun changing lives through discovery, care and service. They are publishing in leading journals, conducting innovative research, providing care to our community and helping redefine the future of health care.
As the region’s only academic medical center, UC San Diego Health Sciences offers something uniquely powerful: an environment where education, research, clinical care and community engagement are deeply interconnected. Students learn not only in classrooms, but also in clinics, hospitals, research labs and community settings — gaining firsthand experience applying knowledge to real-world challenges from the beginning of their training.
That integration shapes better practitioners, researchers and leaders. Students see how discoveries move from bench to bedside, how public health challenges influence clinical care, and how collaboration across disciplines improves outcomes for patients and communities alike.
This year reflects that impact in many ways. The Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, in partnership with Southwestern College, launched a joint Bachelor of Science in Public Health program, expanding access to public health education and preparing students to address the social and environmental factors that shape health. This year, we also celebrate the graduation of the inaugural class of the Atkinson Physician Assistant Education program at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, a program that attracts more than 3,000 applicants annually.
Experiential learning is central to our academic medical center model. At the Student-Run Free Clinic Project and UC San Diego Health mobile health units, students provide critically needed medical services while learning compassionate, team-based care. For example, at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, every first-year student rotates through the Student-Run Free Clinic, gaining early exposure to community-centered care and interdisciplinary collaboration. Just as important, students are supported through mentorship programs (including via Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion), tutoring, and courses that emphasize empathy, communication and compassionate care.
Our students are also contributing to research across our labs, centers and institutes, presenting findings on topics ranging from artificial intelligence in medicine to injury recovery for dancers. Recently, School of Medicine scholars took top honors at back-to-back Grad SLAM and Postdoc PITCH competitions, where they distilled years of research into three-minute talks (available online).
The strongest academic health systems do more than educate students or treat patients. They create environments where learning, discovery and care continuously strengthen one another — improving health today while preparing the leaders who will shape tomorrow.
