Valley counties join list of proponents

Support for the proposed UC Merced School of Medicine is growing. On Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008, The Fresno Bee reported that Gov. Schwarzenegger recently announced his support for a UC Merced medical school.

According to the editorial, the governor discussed the importance of preparing for the future and pointed out that even more physicians will be needed in California if his comprehensive health care plan is passed.

As of mid-January, six out of nine Valley counties overwhelmingly passed resolutions backing UC Merced’s plans to develop a community-based distributed model of medical education. Valley counties that have stepped forward in favor of UC Merced’s plans include Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Stanislaus and Tulare, representing nearly 1.5 million people.

Since UC Merced first announced its intent to establish health sciences and medical education programs, a number of Valley residents, elected officials, entities and organizations such as the Bakersfield Californian, California Medical Association, California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, Central Valley Higher Education Consortium, the City of Clovis, Merced Sun-Star, San Joaquin Valley Association of California Counties, The Fresno Bee, The Fresno Business Council, and The Modesto Bee have expressed their support.

Communities are at the heart
of a UC medical school in the Valley

UC Merced is focused on creating an additional UC-quality educational opportunity. The proposed model for medical education is based on partnerships with sister UC campuses and existing health care resources in the Valley.

As proposed, the instructional program will be founded on a community-based distributed model of medical education with local health care facilities serving as instructional sites for clinical training. The first two years of the student program, which include student learning in basic and applied sciences, will take place on the UC Merced campus. Clinical training, which occurs during the third and fourth years of medical school, will take place in regional health care facilities. No new hospitals or teaching facilities are planned. The first clinical campus is slated to be in partnership with UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program, which has the infrastructure in place to conduct clinical training opportunities for students. Additional clinical campuses will be developed throughout the Valley in the future. This model is the most cost-effective and fastest way to establish a new medical school that will serve the state and the unique healthcare needs of the Valley.

UC Merced researchers developing
tool to address drug-resistant bacteria

Research is a defining feature of a UC-quality medical school. The growing program in biomedical research at UC Merced is a vital component of an innovative medical education program leading to a future medical school at UC’s 10^th campus. Most recently, amid local and international concern about the public health threat of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aurea bacteria, researchers at UC Merced have filed for a patent on a powerful new screening tool that could someday answer widespread calls for universal staph screenings before patients are admitted to hospitals.

"Universal screening is not possible right now," said Professor Miriam Barlow of UC Merced's School of Natural Sciences. "The standard means for identifying drug-resistant staph is a two-step process that requires several days. Obviously hospitals can't make patients wait that long to be admitted.

"Our screening method is being developed with the aim of accomplishing a screening in six hours or less."

Barlow and  professors Matthew Meyer of the School of Natural Sciences and Shawn Newsam of the School of Engineering, are developing what they call the Microcalorimetry Microorgamism Infectious Disease Analyzer (M2IDF), a machine that measures how bacterial cells respond to heat as a way of identifying the bacteria and determining whether they are resistant to antibiotics.

Barlow and her colleagues believe that resistant staph (Multiply Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA) is a public health threat comparable in scope to AIDS. Antibiotic resistant pathogenic bacteria have been increasing in frequency and global spread for years. Hospital-acquired infections have long been a major source of resistant bacteria, but now those hospital-acquired infections are moving from hospitals into the community and posing an increasingly serious public health threat. 

Experiments and testing continue at UC Merced with the aim of bringing M2IDF to the market. The professors involved are seeking industrial partners for its development. Their patent application was filed Jan. 3.

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UC Merced's Valley telehealth project underway

Last year, UC Merced received nearly $1 million from AT&T, the California Emerging Technology Fund and the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley to create a telehealth network in the San Joaquin Valley aimed at increasing access to specialists, particularly for underserved and rural patients.

The funding will enable UC Merced, in partnership with UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program and UC Davis, to establish four eHealth centers in the Valley and a hub on campus. The centers will be located at existing health care facilities and will provide telemedicine services via videoconferencing with electronic storage and forwarding capabilities, training for physicians and staff, and educational opportunities for high school and college students in the region.

UC Merced recently named Jennifer Smith as telemedicine project manager. Smith's initial charge is to analyze which sites will make the best telemedicine partners for UC Merced. As part of the process, she will survey health care facilities in the Valley that are federally designated as rural and/or underserved and then will begin meeting with physicians to identify those that are in need of telemedicine and interested in providing the service to their patients.

More than 100 sites in the Valley, from Stockton to Bakersfield and the surrounding foothill communities, are being considered as eHealth centers.

In addition, the Federal Communications Commission recently announced a $22 million award to the State of California to implement a California Telehealth Network. The UC Office of the President is overseeing the project, which will bring broadband access to rural communities throughout the state, covering more than 300 sites, including 91 in the San Joaquin Valley. The project will pave the way for rural doctors and communities to benefit from the advantages of telemedicine. UC Merced was invited to collaborate on the CTN, which will operate in harmony with the campus' goals during the assessment and installation of its four eHealth sites.

Health care providers interested in learning more about UC Merced’s telehealth project should e-mail jsmith38@ucmerced.edu

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