UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine was recently ranked 11th in the nation among research-based medical schools, according to U.S. News & World Report’s annual survey of U.S. graduate schools.
For primary care medical school programs, it ranks 10th by the same survey.
“No matter what parameter you look at, the ranking the medical school has received proves that the environment here at UCLA is one of the most extraordinary,” said Dr. Gerald S. Levey, dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine.
He said he credits the school’s distinction in medical care with its use of cutting-edge science and partnership with the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. The Reagan Medical Center has been ranked among the top six in the nation by the annual report since its inception and currently ranks in the top three, he added.
The center has among the best medical curriculums in the nation for studying the systems of the body, said Alan Robinson, the executive associate dean of the school of medicine.
Students only take one course at a time and engage in problem-based self-learning, where they work alone on an assigned clinical problem. The curriculum is automatically updated each year with the contributions of a new class of students, he said.
Out of the 5,800 to 6,500 applicants the school reviews each year, only about 121 are accepted, Levey said.
The school currently enrolls over 700 students, and the Reagan Medical Center has 7,000 employees while running on a $2.2 billion annual budget, he added.
Students enrolled in the program can expect to be prepared for entering any field of medicine, from patient-oriented care to specialized medical care, he added.
Factors U.S. News used to determine its rankings included peer ratings and opinions on program quality, students’ average grade point average, faculty-to-student ratio and acceptance rate, according to the UCLA Health System’s press release.