Save the JMP!

I graduated from JMP 1982 Berkeley and 1984 UCSF. I started as a Family Medicine resident at UCSF (SF General) and switched as a 2nd year resident to OBGYN at UCSF - and I basically work as a primary care in that realm. It was an amazing program at that time and even more so now. We had a wonderful sense of Community - a desire to help more than ourselves. My project was a social sciences focus on women in medicine (women who had mature careers in medicine in the late 70s and the challenges and rewards presented). I believe strongly in the program and support its continuation.

Please continue this amazing program turning out physicians committed to medicine, public healh and social justice.

I graduated from the JMP in 1987 (UCSF 1989). I has worked exclusively in primary care, under-served settings: Three FQHC's, two county health systems and one rural health center. The focus of my master's degree was international primary health care. Out of all of the medical school programs in the United States I believe only the JMP has continued to focus on the academic foundation of health care, equity and community as a core component of its mission. Closing the JMP over an amount of money less than a prolonged stay in the NICU at Children's Hospital would be tragic.

This program ( I was in the first year of the program) gave me the opportunity to be where I am, doing what I do today as a Bone Marrow Transplant Hematologist, the primary care physician for patients with hematologic malignancies that are transplanted for cure. I decided that I wanted to be a physician late in life ( I had previously spent 9 years in the military at a time when many did not see the military as the honorable profession it is seen today). This program accepted me and though it was a gamble those first years it allowed me to have the most satisfying career I ever could have imagined. I am still working full time caring for patients, teaching at HMS and directing the clinical BMT Program at BIDMC in Boston. Don't close JMP.

UC Berkeley seems to follow the familiar pattern of US history. Given 5 programs that John Vasconcellos and the legislature intended to directly benefit the State, UCB threw four out of five under the bus (the last to go was Genetic Counselling) and now wants to toss in the JMP after the rest. As a student of American Medical Education and an emeritus clinical professor I find this a tragic embarassment. If cuts must be made, let them be in the many programs that take our energy overseas rather than one of the few that benefits California and the USA.

To lose this program in a time of great shortage of primary care physicians would be a true tragedy.

For everyone who has had a negative experience going to see the doctor, the JMP is the program to support if you want your medical providers to be kind, caring, and to understand that health isn't about microscopic interactions as much as it is about being a whole human.

Without this program, I never would have been given a chance to launch my 25+ year career in internal medicine. Please do not discontinue it!

The JMP has been an essential part of my identity as a physician,

The JMP would still be my first choice for medical school!

I thank the JMP for making me a thinker and a healer.

I am so grateful for the education and the connections I made by being fortunate enough to become a physician by way of the JMP. I cannot see the justification for closing a program that fosters such a high proportion primary care physicians, many of whom work with under-served populations.

34 years of thanks for what I learned at the JMP and still using it.

Too many good docs and faculty docs have trained in this program, and we need more like them!

As a graduate & long time faculty, I would never have become an MD or teacher if not for the unique culture of the JMP community. It finds a way NOT to dehumanize or degrade the soulful spirit of the folks that pass through it. As a model for efficacious training here & abroad, it is a beacon of hope.

As a JMP graduate, and now Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF, I can firmly attest to the critical need for this program. Teaching medical students in their fourth year, I am often privileged to work with JMP students. I find that their ability to see the larger picture, to work in teams, and dedication to the humanism in medicine to be unparalleled. Many JMP go on to train in primary care, as I did following medical school.

Cutting this program would be a classic example of penny wise and pound foolish.

It was an AMAZING program. It would be a huge loss to many future physicians and to our community if the program no longer existed.

The JMP catalyzed my experience and research in the political implementation of healthcare. It ignited my passion to serve at the intersection of public policy and health. The JMP was the first stage of a career that culminated in serving as the first US ambassador on global health under Colin Powell and as the first assistant director-general at the World Health Organization for AIDS/TB/Malaria. Saving the JMP will enable the training of future generations of physician-diplomats at home and abroad.

This unique program, which came about during the time of Senator John Vasconcellos, has had an ongoing influence on how I, along with so many others, practice medicine. I remember hearing when I applied how the program had been created to train "humanistic doctors." It seems so important that this program continue because of the rare opportunity it offers med students to study anatomy and histology alongside classes in the humanities and social sciences, like medicine & literature and medical anthropology. Seems very sad and shortsighted to stop its funding.