In Brief: Kaiser Will Build Med School In Pasadena; UCLA Releases Alarming Diabetes Data

Kaiser Will Build Med School In Pasadena

Kaiser Permanente will build its planned medical school near its Southern California headquarters in Pasadena.

Kaiser announced Thursday that the site was chosen due to its proximity to affordable housing, public transportation and freeways.

“Kaiser Permanente provides care and coverage in communities across the United States, and Pasadena offers some important attributes that align with our vision for the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine,” said Kaiser Chief Executive Officer Bernard J. Tyson. “Pasadena is a vibrant and diverse community, and that diversity is essential to the model of medical education we want to establish as we prepare physicians for the practice of medicine in the 21st century.” 

Kaiser had announced last year that it planned to build a medical school in Southern California.

Groundbreaking on the site, which Kaiser currently owns and now is the site of an unoccupied building, will begin next year. 

The first group of medical students is expected to be admitted in 2019.

“We are designing a curriculum focused on providing high-quality, patient-centered care in both traditional and non-traditional settings, with an emphasis on collaboration and teamwork. Patient engagement, shared decision-making and evidence-based practice will be core to the curriculum design,” said Edward M. Ellison, M.D., executive medical director of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group.

UCLA Releases Alarming Data On Californians And Diabetes

More than half of Californians either have diabetes, suffer from symptoms that indicate they could develop the type 2 version of the disease in the future or have the disease but have gone undiagnosed, according to a new study by UCLA researchers.

The study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and underwritten by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy concluded that 46% of the state’s residents had symptoms of prediabetes or undiagnosed diabetes, while another 9% of state residents had already been diagnosed with type 2 adult onset diabetes.

In some of California’s poorer rural counties, the rate of prediabetes or undiagnosed diabetes among younger adults 18 to 39 is as high as 40%.

The study also concluded that African-Americans, Pacific Islanders, Latinos, Asian-Americans and mixed raced Californians are also at higher risk of developing symptoms of prediabetes or contracting diabetes.

“This is the clearest indication to date that the diabetes epidemic is out of control and getting worse,” said Harold Goldstein, M.D., executive director of the health advocacy center. “With limited availability of healthy food in low-income communities, a preponderance of soda and junk food marketing, and urban neighborhoods lacking safe places to play, we have created a world where diabetes is the natural consequence.”

Goldstein called on state policymakers to launch a major campaign to help reverse the current diabetes trends in California.