Santa Clara University is entering the medical field through a major partnership with Sutter Health aimed at training future physicians in the South Bay.
University and healthcare leaders announced the launch of the Mark & Mary Stevens School of Medicine during a Friday event outside the future campus site at 2431 Mission College Blvd. in Santa Clara, where construction is already underway. The 82,000-square-foot medical school plans to open within the next three to five years pending the accreditation process.
The school is backed by a $175 million donation from venture capitalist and Nvidia billionaire Mark Stevens and longtime Santa Clara University trustee Mary Stevens.
“This is a historic partnership with Santa Clara,” Sutter Health CEO Warner Thomas told San José Spotlight. “We haven’t seen a new MD medical school (in the Bay Area) created in over 100 years.”
Thomas said California and the nation continue to face significant physician shortages, particularly as healthcare systems prepare for growing and aging populations. He said the new medical school will help train the next generation of doctors while expanding access to care in local communities.
Santa Clara University President Julie Sullivan said the university and Sutter Health have been discussing the partnership for nearly three years. She said the school aims to prepare physicians who can combine advances in technology with compassionate patient care.
“We’re really excited to be able to create a school of medicine that will help address a physician workforce shortage,” Sullivan told San José Spotlight. “Even more importantly, we’ll focus on creating the physicians that are going to be most effective in a future world of keeping patients, families and communities healthy … but also very facile with technology and how it can be used to take even better care of people. But without taking the human connection of the physician and the patient out of the equation, because that’s so important.”
This story originally appeared in San José Spotlight.