Laughter is often found in an unexpected place at the UCR School of Medicine: the Office of Financial Aid. Kathleen Buckner, the director of financial aid, and Theresa Luther, the assistant director, converse in undertones and long glances before suddenly breaking into giggles. Both women started at the UCR central...

For the past four years, Cristina Gonzalez, now a project analyst in the Department of Social Medicine, Population, and Public Health (SMPPH) at the UC Riverside School of Medicine, would rush to make progress on homework assignments during her lunch break, stay up until 11 pm to take proctored exams...

The Longitudinal Ambulatory Care Experience is the core UCR SOM medical program that helps medical students serve local patients beginning in their first year while building their foundation as physicians.

As a child growing up in Bakersfield, CA, Jarrod McNaughton remembers standing in lines with his mother to receive government-issued food. Now, as the CEO of Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP), McNaughton helps provide affordable healthcare to inland Southern California families like his. McNaughton had never considered working in healthcare...

After years of planning and two years of construction, the UC Riverside School of Medicine will celebrate the grand opening of the new School of Medicine Education Building II on Tuesday, September 26, 2023.

Hundreds of thousands of spinal surgeries are performed every year in the U.S., with many involving pedicle screws to stabilize the vertebrae. As patients walk around with the implanted screw—many for the rest of their lives—most are likely unaware that the proceeds from one type of pedicle screw helps fund...

Several mornings each week, Isaac Owusu-Frimpong rises with the sun to complete a morning run before heading to work at the UCR School of Medicine. But these are no leisurely jogs. The Division of Biomedical Sciences FAO recently completed two marathons in six weeks and is training for more. In...

The UC Riverside School of Medicine Open House returned as a fully in-person event on Saturday, April 8 for the first time since 2019. “This is really exciting,” said Kate Dorff, manager of external relations and protocol. “Since we’ve been doing it online for the past few years, we haven’t...

Each year, the UC Riverside School of Medicine participates in Match Day, a celebration in which medical students across the nation simultaneously find out where they will be spending the next portion of their medical training. This year’s event, which took place on Friday, March 17, was even more special...

Few individuals have lived the history--or exemplify the mission--of the UC Riverside School of Medicine more than Teresa Cofield, director of the school’s Pathway Programs. Cofield, one of the longest tenured staff members at the SOM, came to UCR as an undergraduate in the late 1980s and has been with...

As a researcher in the educational technology space, Daniel Alexander Novak, PhD, assistant clinical professor in health sciences and director of scholarly activities at UC Riverside, has heard time and time again that a new technology will change the world. He’s often been disappointed. But in late December last year...

Hundreds of thousands of young people in the U.S. identify as transgender, but the lack of gender-affirming care can lead to an increased risk of mental health issues and substance use. “A great deal of psychiatrists and nurse practitioners are ill-equipped to treat younger transgender patients simply because these issues...

For UC Riverside’s LACE program director, Moazzum Bajwa, MD, MPH, working as a family medicine physician and advocate comes down to one simple question: “How do you use the skills and resources that you have to make an impact at the one-on-one level and at that larger community level in...

The Inland Empire has a shortage of primary care physicians, but UCR’s Primary Care Summit aims to help change that. The event returned to campus on January 14, 2023 for the first time since 2020. Hosted by the UCR School of Medicine’s Family and Preventative Medicine Interest Group (FPMIG), the...

For Jesse Romo, constructing UC Riverside’s new School of Medicine Education Building II has helped him contribute to improving medical care in the community. It has also held a more personal meaning for the labor foreman: working toward finding a cure for his daughter, who has lupus. “There's nothing her...

Lights flashed and a recorded siren blared as a small group of medical students kneeled around a mannequin. Two applied tourniquets to the mannequin’s severed leg and wrist, while a third pressed gauze into an open wound and a fourth checked for other injuries. After two and a half minutes...

Each year, select students at the UC Riverside School of Medicine earn tuition in exchange for committing to practice medicine in Inland Southern California. The program, called the Mission Award scholarship, supports medical students while furthering the school’s goal of increasing medical care in the community. The School of Medicine...

On any given day, Peg Winn and Cristian Palacios could be acting as patients in simulated medical scenarios or teaching specific topics and techniques to small groups of medical students. They fill similar educational roles at the UC Riverside School of Medicine, but their opposite backgrounds offer unique contributions to...

There’s currently no effective treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS), but Seema Tiwari-Woodruff, Ph.D. , the director of UCR's Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, may be well on her way to finding one. As MS attacks the body, it causes damage to the myelin sheath, the fatty coating around nerve fibers that...

What can people living in the mountains of Peru teach us about people dealing with COVID-19 related oxygen deficiency? Actually, quite a bit. High-altitude exposure leads to hypoxia, or low levels of oxygen in the body—a condition that’s present in COVID-19 and many other medical conditions. Erica Heinrich, Ph.D., an...