"Pride" was the theme of Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef's brown bag chat at the UC Davis Health System on Dec. 4.

Vanderhoef emphasized the "crucial nature" of the health system and its numerous benefits to the region. "It is extremely important," he told an audience of about 80 administrators, faculty and staff and members of the Sacramento community. "Never let us forget how important it is. I look at the medical center, and am very proud."

Speaking in the auditorium of the UC Davis Cancer Center, Vanderhoef listed the following health system accomplishments as particular sources of pride:

• Selection by the National Institutes of Health to participate in a national consortium charged with transforming how clinical and translational research is conducted. The selection, announced in October, comes with $24.8 million over the next five years to expand the existing biomedical research enterprise and establish the UC Davis Center for Clinical and Translational Research.
• UC Davis Cancer Center's designation as the nation's 61st National Cancer Institute center, renewed in 2005. The distinction comes with $14 million in NCI research support through the year 2010.
• Medical Interpreting and Cultural Services at UC Davis Medical Center, which offers translation and interpreting in 21 languages.
• The School of Medicine's student-run clinics, which serve uninsured and underinsured people in Sacramento's Asian-American, Latino, African-American and Muslim communities.
• The telemedicine program, widely regarded as among the best in the nation.
• The health system's increasing efforts to address health disparities throughout the region and state.

Vanderhoef praised the UC Davis Health System for its innovative and far-reaching efforts to meet the health care needs of the region's medically underserved, a role he said will become even more crucial as California prepares for an anticipated physician and nurse shortfall.

He noted that California is expected to face a shortfall of up to 17,000 physicians by 2015 due to population growth, an aging physician work force and the lack of growth in California medical education programs for more than three decades.

"We have problems today. There will be bigger problems tomorrow," he said.

The health system is responding to the anticipated shortfall by expanding the School of Medicine class size, implementing programs to place medical students in underserved areas of the state, and expanding its telemedicine capabilities.

Telemedicine represents one of UC Davis' "biggest opportunities" to help medically underserved Californians, Vanderhoef said.

"We simply aren't going to have enough people at each and every site. Telemedicine is a way to solve that," he said.

Land grant duties

The chancellor emphasized that UC Davis, as a land grant university, has an obligation to identify and help solve important societal problems. The health system meets this obligation in myriad ways, he said, not least through efforts to identify, understand and eliminate health disparities.

"This is becoming so important as we realize how much more diverse we are today than we were yesterday, and how much more diverse we will be tomorrow," he said.

In the last half of his talk, Vanderhoef took questions from the audience ranging from staffing in the Office of the President to preparing for change within UC Davis.

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw fielded the question about change, acknowledging that too-rapid change can make people feel "like they're running on a hamster wheel." The answer, she said, is to look for ways to streamline or reduce workloads so that people can "focus on what their passion is that brought them here" and "feel good about working here."

Solutions already in the works include a pilot grant-preparation "SWAT team" that can help faculty and programs get grant proposals together quickly, Hinshaw said. Similar pilot interventions are addressing other needs.

Reflecting on his 22 years with the university, Vanderhoef recalled when UC Davis Medical Center was "what now seems a very small building" and "barely made it into the black" financially each year.

"Watching all of the growth and progress since then has been a real pleasure," he said. "You all should be very proud."