Source:
Announcement from Marjorie S. Zatz
Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, UC Merced
Dr. Margo Vener has been appointed director of undergraduate medical education at UC Merced. She has served as interim director since September 2022. She has simultaneously been named UC San Francisco assistant dean for undergraduate medical education at UC Merced.
Her appointment comes as UC Merced welcomes the first cohort of 15 Central Valley students into our BS to MD pathway. Dr. Vener has played a significant role in recruiting and welcoming these students, the first wave of those we expect will help transform health care in the Valley.
“Each student has the potential to have a tremendous ripple effect,” said Dr. Vener. “When a student becomes a health professional – whether a doctor, nurse, psychologist, biomedical researcher, or physical therapist – not only will they care for thousands of patients in the Valley, but also become an impactful role model in their community. “
“When children in the Valley see compassionate health professionals caring for their parents or grandparents, or when they know local health professionals in their neighborhood, they think: ‘If she became a doctor or a nurse, I could do it too.’ Each student touches a community and creates possibilities.”
Dr. Vener remains a professor of family and community medicine at UCSF, where for the past 20 years she has practiced primary care and precepted students and residents in the Refugee Clinic in the Family Health Center. She has a strong interest in improving primary care education and mentoring at all levels of training.
She attended UCSF School of Medicine, earning her MD in 1995. She earned her master’s in public health at UC Berkeley in 1994. She trained in the family medicine residency program at San Francisco General Hospital, completed a fellowship in medical education and joined the UCSF family medicine faculty in 1999.
In simultaneously announcing her appointment, our colleagues at UCSF said:
Dr. Vener is a leader in medical education with a vision of transforming access and enrolling local communities for expanded health equity and education. She is widely praised for longstanding and remarkable work in undergraduate medical education. Because of Dr. Vener’s dedication to advancing health equity by training local physicians, we can anticipate positive community outcomes in the SJV, and models for expanding doctor training in underserved communities around the country.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Vener on her appointment and wishing her great success as we work to expand medical education in the Valley.
Sincerely,
Marjorie S. Zatz
Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
