Catherine Lucey is one of the most important people in medical education today. She works at the University of California, San Francisco, where she serves as Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost. Her work focuses on changing how doctors are trained and making sure medical schools prepare students to solve real health problems that communities face today. Through her career, she has shown that good medical education should not only teach science but also help future doctors understand how to make healthcare fair for everyone and work well with other health professionals.
Early Life and Medical Training
Catherine Reinis Lucey earned her medical degree from Northwestern University School of Medicine, graduating with distinction. After graduating, she returned to UCSF Medical Center to complete her residency training in internal medicine. She performed so well during her training that she was chosen to be Chief Resident at San Francisco General Hospital. These early experiences in public hospitals where many patients did not have good access to healthcare helped shape her understanding of what medical education needed to change.
Building a Career in Medical Education
After finishing her training, Lucey began her career as both a doctor and a teacher. She started as a residency program director at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., where she helped train new doctors. In 2002, Ohio State University asked her to join their team as vice chair for education in the Department of Internal Medicine. She was promoted to vice dean for education in the College of Medicine in 2007. During her last year at Ohio State, she served as interim dean for the entire College of Medicine. Throughout her time there, Lucey won many teaching awards, including several teacher of the year awards and a mentor of the year award.
Return to UCSF and the Bridges Curriculum
In 2011, Lucey returned to UCSF as Vice Dean for Education at the School of Medicine. She believed that the way doctors were being trained was too old-fashioned and did not prepare them for modern healthcare challenges. Traditional medical education separated basic science learning from clinical practice, with students spending two years in classrooms and two years in hospitals. This method had been used since 1910, but Lucey thought it was time for a change. She worked with hundreds of teachers, staff members, and students at UCSF to create the Bridges Curriculum. The name “Bridges” was chosen because the program creates connections between different parts of medicine that used to be separate.
The Bridges Curriculum is different from old medical school programs in several important ways. First, it mixes basic science and clinical work throughout all four years instead of separating them. From their first days in medical school, students learn about how the body works while also working with patients. Second, the curriculum teaches students about population health, which looks at what makes whole groups of people sick or healthy, and social and behavioral science, which helps doctors understand how people’s living situations affect their health. Third, first-year students work on real healthcare improvement projects as part of teams in hospitals and clinics.
Focus on Health Equity and Diversity
One of the most important parts of Catherine Lucey’s work has been her strong commitment to making medical education more fair and diverse. She understands that healthcare in many communities is not equal. Some people, especially those from minority groups or those who do not have much money, often receive worse medical care than others. Lucey believes that to fix this problem, medical schools need to train doctors who understand these inequalities and know how to address them. She has been a leader in the Differences Matter Initiative at UCSF School of Medicine, which works to create a culture where everyone feels included and valued.
Catherine Lucey has also worked on changing how medical schools decide which students to admit and how they evaluate student performance. She has written important articles about how the current system of grading and testing can unfairly hurt students from minority backgrounds. She argues that medical schools should use many different ways to measure student achievement, not just standardized test scores. In 2021, she received the John A. Benson Jr., MD Professionalism Article Prize for her work analyzing structural racism in medical school admissions.
Leadership During the COVID-19 Pandemic
When the COVID-19 pandemic started in early 2020, it created huge challenges for medical schools. Lucey helped lead UCSF School of Medicine through this difficult time. She saw the pandemic as an opportunity to make medical education better. The pandemic showed that medical schools needed to teach students more about public health and crisis management. It also showed how important it is for doctors to understand health disparities.
During the pandemic, people from minority communities and people with less money were getting sicker and dying more often from COVID-19. Lucey worked to make sure these topics became a more important part of what students learned. The Class of 2020, which was the first group to complete all four years of the Bridges Curriculum, graduated during the pandemic and were well-prepared to help communities deal with the health crisis.
National Leadership and Recognition
Beyond her work at UCSF, Catherine Lucey has been a leader in medical education across the entire country. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2018, which is one of the highest honors a person in health science can receive. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges and as Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine. Through these national roles, Lucey has influenced how medical education works not just at UCSF but at medical schools across the country. Many other medical schools have looked at the Bridges Curriculum and started making similar changes to their own programs.
Research and Publications
Catherine Lucey has published more than sixty scientific articles about education and health equity in important medical journals. Her research looks at how to assess student performance fairly, how to prepare doctors to work in teams, and how to create medical schools where everyone feels included. One of her important research papers examined how small differences in teacher ratings can add up to create big differences in grades and awards, showing how grading systems can accidentally hurt students from underrepresented groups. Her publications are read by medical educators around the world and help shape how medical schools think about teaching and learning.
Current Role as Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
In November 2022, Catherine Lucey was appointed Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, starting in January 2023. This is one of the most important leadership positions at the entire university. As Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, Lucey leads both UCSF’s research programs and all academic programs. UCSF has four professional schools, including the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, the School of Pharmacy, and the School of Dentistry, plus the Graduate Division. She works closely with the Chancellor to develop plans for the future and make sure UCSF continues to be one of the best health science universities in the world.
Conclusion
Catherine Lucey has dedicated her career to transforming medical education and preparing the next generation of doctors to serve their communities effectively and fairly. Through her leadership at UCSF, her work on the Bridges Curriculum, and her service in national organizations, she has influenced how medical schools across the United States educate future doctors. Her vision of medical education as a public good that should prepare doctors to improve healthcare systems and address health disparities continues to shape the field of medical education today.
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