After more than 30 years as part of our exceptional UC Davis School of Medicine community, I am continually inspired by our students, trainees, faculty and staff. This year, despite the challenging environment for academic medicine, the School of Medicine distinguished itself as a national leader in life-changing research and in training the physician workforce that California needs.
The 2025 U.S. News & World Report rankings placed us in Tier 1 for excellence in primary care training and among the best in research. We ranked 33rd in funding from the National Institutes of Health and were again recognized as a national Top 10 Center for Biomedical Research.
As a pivotal partner of Aggie Square, a first-of-its-kind innovation district on the UC Davis Sacramento campus, nearly 350 of our school’s scientists and affiliated centers will conduct collaborative studies including health policy, neurosciences, cancer, surgical biomedical engineering and emerging technologies.
Our faculty were recognized with top 2025 national awards, including induction into the National Academy of Medicine and honors by The Hartwell Foundation, Clinical Research Forum, the Association for Clinical and Translational Science, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and many others.
However, the University of California and our research community face substantial challenges, with the cancellation of research grants and the ongoing specter of massive federal cuts to vital research funding.
Thank you to all who joined me in supporting our school’s new Dean’s Research Fund, which provides support for investigators facing unexpected grant losses. This fund protects their discoveries and the training of future scientists — ensuring that our researchers, postdoctoral students and research teams can continue their vital work.
“With federal research funding at risk, support from foundations and private donors is essential to safeguarding scientific innovation.”—Susan Murin, M.D., M.Sc., M.B.A., Dean, UC Davis School of Medicine
This year, we also launched two new partnerships aimed at increasing the number of physicians in high-need regions of California’s Central Valley and Central Coast. We will also expand our Accelerated Competency-based Education in Primary Care (ACE-PC) three-year medical school pathway into rural counties in Northern California starting next year.
Students enrolled in this new pathway, Rural ACE-PCP — or Rural Accelerated Competency-based Education in Primary Care and Psychiatry — will train in hospitals and clinics in Shasta, Nevada and Humboldt counties. The goal is that many will complete their residencies and eventually practice medicine in those counties.
Thank you for supporting our nationally recognized community and our mission to train the next generation of physician leaders and scientists.
