University of the Pacific, founded 175 years ago as California’s first college, is launching a School of Medicine, a transformational initiative to address the severe and growing physician shortages across the Central Valley and other areas suffering from dangerous health care disparities.
The Pacific School of Medicine will be California’s first M.D.-granting institution outside of the state’s largest population centers in Southern California, the Bay Area, and Greater Sacramento.
Located on the university’s historic Stockton Campus, the new School of Medicine will focus on educating a new cadre of doctors for vastly underserved areas. The regions located south of the Bay Area and Greater Sacramento and north of Los Angeles-the San Joaquin Valley, southern Foothills, Central Coast, and eastern Sierra-all fall well below the bare minimum standards for primary care physicians per capita, while California’s biggest metropolitan area-home to the state’s 13 M.D.-granting schools-meet the recommended physician-to-population ratio.
Pacific will be only the 36th U.S. university to have schools of medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and health sciences. Drawing on its existing strengths in health sciences, as well as bioengineering, business, law, communications, the humanities, and more, the founding dean will help orchestrate the development of a truly multidisciplinary curriculum modeled on 21st-century, patient-centric teaching and focused on producing practice-ready physicians. Along with ensuring the school's successful launch and accreditation, the founding dean will work in close collaboration with Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Medical Center, fellow deans, and other community health care partners to build exceptional clinical learning environments for students, residents, and faculty.
This is a career defining role for a servant leader who thrives at the intersection of academic vision, program building, collaboration, and community partnership. The founding dean will join a university with the ambitious goal of becoming the best student-centered comprehensive university in the nation. President Christopher Callahan, Provost Gretchen Edwalds-Gilbert, and the Pacific community invite inquiries from and recommendations of candidates who are forward-looking, energetic, and eager to shape the future of medical education in the region and beyond.
The successful candidate will be an innovative and inspirational medical education leader passionate about the opportunity to lead a new school focused on training outstanding physicians who will serve our communities. The founding dean will lead the LCME accreditation process, the recruitment of top-flight faculty, and the creation of a modern medical school curriculum that embraces a patient-centric design focused on team learning, multidisciplinary education, the application of emerging technologies, and early clinical experiences.
All applications, nominations, and inquiries are invited. Applications should include, as separate documents, a CV/resume and a letter of interest. Review of applications has begun and will continue until the position is filled.
Please direct all applications, nominations, and inquiries to the WittKieffer consultants assisting the university with this recruitment, preferably via e-mail, to Jeff Schroetlin, Senior Partner, though the office of Cody Burke at [email protected].
The budgeted annual salary that University of the Pacific reasonably expects to pay for the Dean of the School of Medicine is between $700,000 and $850,000. This considers a wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to experience, skills, knowledge, abilities, education, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs. Salary offers are determined based on final candidate qualifications and experience.
University of the Pacific is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer dedicated to workforce diversity. In compliance with applicable law and its own policy, Pacific is committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty and staff and does not discriminate in its hiring of faculty and staff, or in the provision of its employment benefits to its faculty and staff on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, genetic information, sex/gender, marital status, military and veteran status, sexual orientation, medical condition, pregnancy, gender identity, gender expression or mental or physical disability. The university will provide reasonable accommodations to individuals with a disability.