Save the JMP!

many of my most dedicated and brilliant colleagues at UCSF medical school were part of the JMP; they were the folks who actually thought out of the box and cared about the underserved folks that UCSF is supposed to be primarily interested in training docs to serve. The JMP is more than 16 additional doctors for California; it's existence represents intellectual diversity at UCSF

Programs like this one repreaent the future of medicine, and it's stunning that UC would consider reverting to traditional and less innovative types of programs. I thought UC Berkeley wanted to be a thought leader, not a slavish adherent to hidebound academic disciplines. Shameful.

Best move of my life was getting into and completing JMP. Am currently Medical Director of LifeLong Medical Care's Downtown Oakland Clinic and Supportive Housing Program, both of which serve underserved folks in the, you guessed it, Downtown Oakland area. Am also teaching residents in Alameda County's Highland Hospital primary care residency, and supporting many many AmeriCorps grads in their efforts to get into the JMP!

Please save the Joint Medical Program between UC Berkeley and UCSF as we need a lot more General Practitioners in our society.

It's dishonest for UCB to receive approximately $3.2 million annually for JMP from tuition, fees, and dedicated state funds, but only $1.3 million is rendered to the UC Berkeley School of Public Health for the JMP. DISHONEST.

Our niece, Franny Yep, is a graduate of this program, a wonderful doctor, and we would hope this excellent program can continue to help develop primary care doctors for the future.

Like the proposal to dissolve the College of Chemistry (where I was for many years the assistant dean), the proposal to dissolve the JMP would result in the destruction of one of the unique programs that distinguishes Berkeley from other universities. The JMP has produced stellar physicians who are not mere technocrats but who are grounded in the disciplines that are needed to understand community health needs and to treat their patients as individuals and not as mere complexes of diseases. New biomedical technologies such as CRISPR and gene transfer make it more important than ever that we have physicians who are trained in the ethical, social and public health aspects of medicine that the JMP provides. The JMP also plays an important role in serving an underserved community in Berkeley; it is a vital aspect of the university’s outreach to the community. As Chancellor Dirks recently stated, public service is “our goal, our mission and our identity.” The JMP, in its training, its philosophy, and its activities in the community, epitomizes just such public service. How can the university in good faith abandon such a program? As a long-time UC Berkeley administrator, I have witnessed many serious budget cuts over more than three decades; they are inevitably difficult for the faculty, staff and students involved. The potential savings generated by the elimination of the JMP, however, are not worth the cost to the community, to medical leadership, and to the university’s reputation that its closure would incur.

Please keep this vital program!

Please preserve this vital program!

I work in the synergy of public health and clinical medicine. The JMP was the perfect training for this work. We need more people to understand the connection between medicine and society, not fewer. If we are serious about dealing with health in all its complexity, the JMP should be expanded not closed,

JMP 1987/UCSF 1989. Dr. Harrison Sadler, director of the JMP in the late 1980's, promoted JMP students as the future "movers and shakers" in health care. Indeed, 3/4 of my class entered primary care, most caring for the underserved and many involved in health policy and medical education. I've spent >20 years working in community health and training future family physicians who are also dedicated to caring for the underserved, both domestically and globally. My JMP experience made me the physician/teacher that I am. With the shortage of primary care physicians nationally, and especially in CA, closing the JMP would be a great loss to the citizens of California. Save the JMP!

I have worked with the program as well as graduates who have become excellent family physicians. The social responsibility of these doctors exceeds other programs. Don't mess with success.

It is my dream to attend a program like this, but even if I am not accepted I could never fathom a world deprived of the caring physicians this program produces. Please don't cut JMP.

I benefited immensely from being around Berkeley graduate students and the education that JMP provided me. A career in medical administration and a commitment to research in social and behavioral aspect of medicine, a marriage and many lasting friendships also started there.

Given the need, I strongly support the continued funding for this program. In the context of overall UCB income from sources that included gifts, earned income, state/fed grants and reimbursement funding, this gap of $600k is a drop in the bucket. It is probably only a tiny percentage of, for example, the Athletics budge...

It's a valuable program, especially the graduates we know.

Training health care providers who are dedicated to public health is essential. This program is uniquely positioned in this time of decreasing numbers of medical personnel.

Keep this program! BSP students wanna come.

With the chronic shortage of physicians in California, and particularly those committed to primary care specialties, it would be unfortunate that this program be discontinued. I would hope a good solution can be found to continue its funding.

It would be a tragedy to lose this program which trains physicians to see and care for patients, not as specific diseases, but rather within the larger context of their lives and communities.