Coffee with the Dean is a platform for ideas, questions, and solutions that stimulate thoughtful, positive discussion regarding our shared values. Coffee with the Dean includes faculty, staff, students, leaders, and trainees who come together with the Dean each month for an hour-long conversation that focuses on DGSOM community concerns. 

We celebrated in June the accomplishments and graduation of the DGSOM Class of 2022. The 68th Commencement Ceremony was DGSOM’s first in-person graduation celebration in three years. Isabel Wilkerson, award-winning author of “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” DGSOM’s Common Book, provided the keynote address for our newest physicians. You can view highlights from this celebration on the commencement website.

These weekly lunchtime dialogues provide an opportunity for DGSOM leaders, staff, faculty, students, and trainees to engage in regular community dialogue. The conversations were grounded in the themes that emerged from the most recent Cultural North Star pulse survey: accountability, professional development, remote work/learning, and other topics of importance to the DGSOM community. 

The insights from the refocus groups informed the planning, goal-setting, and engagement strategy for the upcoming year. The series emphasized the importance of feedback loops, transparency, and building a community of trust.

Undergraduate student organizations, including Pilipinos for Community Health (PCH), have partnered with the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Community Engagement Program to provide clinical services and health education during their quarterly health fair with West Angeles Community Development Corporation (WACDC).

The Healthcare Symposium welcomed all members of the community to “Innovative Solutions in a Broken Healthcare System: Improving Mental Healthcare Access, Housing and Food Insecurity, and Diversity in Medicine.”

In December 2021, on World AIDS Day, Pride Alliance at DGSOM/CDU partnered with the Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services (CHIPTS) and other organizations from across the UCLA campus to host a celebratory and informative event to recognize the work that has been done and the work to be done in the future.

We were able to gather in person to celebrate Match Day for the first time in three years. This was an opportunity to honor and celebrate the successful residency matches of the Class of 2022 with their colleagues and guests. For more details, please visit the Match Day website and the UCLA Newsroom.

The DGSOM/UCLA Health Community Engagement Program, directed by Dr. Carol Mangione, launched a Virtual Summer Camp to engage high school students from low-income communities.