On November 19, 2024, members of Inland Action met with Doug Kleam, St. Bernadine Medical Center President and Deborah Deas, UCR School of Medicine Dean.
Doug Kleam joined St. Bernardine Medical Center, a member of Dignity Health, as President in 2017. He calls himself a retread as he worked at St. Bernardine for 10 years in the 1990’s. Kleam has over 20+ years of experience in for-profit and faith-based health care, including significant experience in operations and business development.
Deborah Deas, M.D., M.P.H. serves as the Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences, the Mark and Pam Rubin Dean of the School of Medicine, and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, Riverside (UCR).
Since arriving in 2016, Dr. Deas has led efforts to increase the class size of UCR School of Medicine’s medical and biomedical sciences programs, expand clinical affiliations, develop and expand the UCR Health clinical enterprise, and increase National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding as well as private giving.
Working in partnership with University of California leadership and state legislators, Dr. Deas helped to secure state funding for the new Medical Education Building II , overseen the buildout of lab space in the School of Medicine Research Building and, in 2021, the opening of the Clinical Skills and Simulation Suite, the home of the Center for Simulated Patient Care. In 2020 she led the effort to secure on ongoing commitment of annual state funding to support the operational expenses for the school.
The two speakers discussed the collaboration between local health care leaders and the university to address the critical crisis in the San Bernardino County for needed physicians. UCR School of Medicine coordinates with 17 different hospitals. Currently the Inland Empire has only 41 primary care physicians per 100,000 residents – the lowest ratio in the state. The need is great because the Inland Empire is one of the most populist areas in the United States and continues to grow. To address this need, UCR School of Medicine only accepts medical students from the state of California. Special preference is also given to applicants that have some current connection to the Inland Empire and still meet the qualifications. With this focus, the school finds that 37% of the students who are trained here will stay in the Inland Empire. The school also has special scholarships tied to a commitment to stay in the region for a period of time. The entire presentation is posted on the Inland Action website for member access.
In May 2023, the School of Medicine was recognized by U.S. News and World Report’s 2023 Best Grad School Rankings as No. 5 in the nation diversity, with 34% of the 350 medical students and 32% of the biomedical sciences students coming from underrepresented minority communities.