OFFICE OF: Mayor
400 S. Vicentia Ave. P.O. Box 940, Corona, California 92878-0940 City Hall Online All The Time – http://www.coronaca.gov Phone: 951-736-2371
Fax: 951-736-2493
May 10, 2022
The Honorable Connie M. Leyva
Chair, Senate Education Committee
1021 O Street, Room 6740
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: SUPPORT SB 1199 (Roth) – UCR School of medicine Teaching Hospital Dear Senator Leyva:
On behalf of the City of Corona, we are writing to express our support for SB 1199 to secure an acute care teaching hospital in Riverside for the purpose of training UCR School of Medicine medical students, medical residents, and medical fellows.
The physician shortage issue is one that affects the entire state. It is projected that the state of California will be short 4,700 primary-care physicians by 2025 and 8,800 by 2030. In the rapidly growing and ethnically diverse area of Inland Southern California, the shortage is particularly severe, with just 35 primary care physicians per 100,000 patients, far fewer than the recommended range of 60 to 80 primary care physicians per 100,000 patients. In real numbers, Inland Southern California has a shortfall of 1,500 primary care physicians.
At the time of its inception in 2013, the UCR School of Medicine was the first new public medical school in California in more than 40 years. However, UCR SOM is the only UC medical school without an accompanying teaching hospital. With the current model of relying on community health partners for clinical slots and residency training programs, UCR SOM is beholden to the whims of those partners, and to the staffing and capacity limits of the Inland Southern California region’s healthcare delivery system. These limitations will be exacerbated as the school’s student enrollment capacity continues to grow due to significant state investments into the School of Medicine, allowing the school to double its enrollment to 500 over the next several years.
This teaching hospital training facility is critical to the success of the UCR School of Medicine mission, because it is well recognized that where physicians train, they remain and practice medicine. The class of 2021 saw 86 % of students remain in California and 38% remain in Inland Southern California for their residency program. Our region can further increase the amount of students that stay and train in the region if UCR had its own teaching hospital to provide clinical training slots and residency training programs.
For the reasons listed above, we support SB 1199. Should you have any questions, please contact our legislative advocate, Sharon Gonsalves, with the Renne Public Policy Group at (916) 974-9270.
Respectfully,
Wes Speake,
Mayor, 5
th District