The University of the Pacific plans to open a medical school at its main campus in Stockton, one of the only institutions to issue a doctor of medicine (M.D.) degree in California\u2019s Central Valley.<\/p>\n
The school is slated to open in the fall of 2030, according to Thursday\u2019s announcement. University officials hope it will help address the growing shortage of physicians in the Central Valley. UOP is the second major university in California to announce plans to open a medical school in recent weeks, after Santa Clara University<\/a> with Sutter Health.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The new medical school, estimated to cost $150 million in the first decade, will include a 100,000-square-foot medical education complex, simulation labs and other specialized equipment. The university has secured more than $25 million from donors, including Regent Tony Chan and wife, former Regent Virginia Chan, both graduates of the pharmacy school, and the Stockton-based Cortopassi Family Foundation. It has launched a public fundraising campaign to support the medical school.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe are enormously proud of our tradition of providing top quality educational opportunities for all qualified students\u00a0\u2014 no matter their background or socioeconomic status\u00a0\u2014 and creating hundreds of caring, practice-ready healthcare professionals each year who are desperately needed in our communities,\u201d Pacific President Christopher Callahan said in a statement. \u201cThe new school of medicine aligns perfectly with our mission.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n There are other medical education programs in the region, including California Health Sciences University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Clovis (Fresno County), which grants a D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) degree, and UCSF Fresno Medical Education and Research Program, a regional campus of UCSF where medical residents and fellows work and train. But UOP will be the first medical school to grant an M.D. outside of Southern California, the Bay Area and greater Sacramento. UC Davis\u2019s medical school is in Sacramento.<\/p>\n The school will partner with Dignity Health St. Joseph\u2019s Medical Center in Stockton, where third and fourth-year medical students will do their clinical rotations.\u00a0<\/p>\n The medical center\u2019s CEO, David Ziolkowski, said the two organizations \u201care aligned in the urgent desire to address the region\u2019s deep physician shortages.\u201d<\/p>\n California and the nation are facing a projected physician shortage over the next decade, largely driven by the aging population needing more medical care just as a large portion of doctors are expected to retire. The shortage is especially pronounced in underserved, rural and semirural areas. Of the eight counties in Central California, six are facing critical shortages in primary care, dental and mental health services, according to a 2025 analysis<\/a> by the Healthforce Center at UCSF. All eight are considered underserved and do not have sufficient access to basic primary care services.\u00a0<\/p>\n Besides Stockton, UOP has campuses in San Francisco and Sacramento.\u00a0<\/p>\n UOP is California\u2019s oldest university, founded in 1851, and well known for its dentistry and pharmacy programs. In 1858, it created the first medical school in the West, in San Francisco, which later became part of what is now the Stanford University School of Medicine.<\/p>\n Correction: A prior version of this article misstated the future UOP medical school\u2019s regional status. It will be one of the only institutions to offer\u00a0M.D. degrees in the Central Valley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of the Pacific plans to open a medical school at its main campus in Stockton, one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,15,1570],"class_list":["post-337301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-education","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}