Evolving with Healthcare Innovation

As healthcare technology rapidly evolves, medical education must keep pace. Integrating engineering design, experiential learning and industry partnerships into today’s medical school curriculum equips future physicians with the tools to develop innovative, life-saving medical devices and diagnostics.

A group of students sit around a four desks working on a technical project as part of the Physician Innovator Training Program

Currently, 26 US medical schools offer courses and programs focused on innovation, engineering and/or entrepreneurship.* The engineering and technology curriculum includes lectures and hands-on modules for medical students and is typically led by a multidisciplinary group of faculty from medicine, engineering and entrepreneurship.

Out of the 26 national universities, the following offer joint MD/MS programs in engineering:

Five-year MD/MS programs:

  • Stanford
  • Duke (“Physician-Inventor” Program)
  • Columbia
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Yale
  • University of Texas, Houston (w/ Rice University)
  • University of Illinois Chicago
  • University of Minnesota
  • University of Colorado
  • Case Western Reserve University (w/ Cleveland Clinic)
  • Western Michigan University
  • University of Central Florida

Four-year MD/MS programs:

  • Texas A&M University (“Physicianeer”)
  • Texas Tech University
*Arias J, et al. Innovation-Oriented Medical School Curricula: Review of the Literature (2021) Cureus. PMID: 34754659

Expanding Physician Innovator Training to the UC System

None of the 26 schools currently includes a University of California (UC) campus. As a premier public academic institution driving breakthrough discoveries worldwide — and ranked #1 among higher education institutions for U.S. patents in 2023 — UC has the resources and talent to expand its leadership into healthcare innovation. By blending clinical training with engineering design, we are empowering a new generation of physician-pioneers to engineer solutions to healthcare’s most pressing challenges.

Resident working with medical students

Located in one of the largest tech hubs in the country, with growth outpacing that of Silicon Valley and San Diego, UC Irvine is an ideal launchpad for future physician innovators. We have a long-standing record of success in innovation.

Concept to Commercialization

With nearly 100 startups spun out of UC Irvine, many of which have been acquired by large companies, our campus actively translates research into real-world solutions. A key factor of this success is the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, a leading translational research center and one of the first of a dozen research institutes housed under the School of Medicine. The Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic generates 40% of the campus’s royalty income while driving $56 million in combined research, licensing and clinical revenue.

Medical Education Technology

Since 2012, the School of Medicine has been consecutively recognized as an Apple Distinguished School for educational technology innovation. We were the first medical school in the nation to provide incoming medical students with their own iPads. Around that same time, we also integrated portable point-of-care ultrasound and advanced medical simulation training into the medical degree curriculum.

And most recently, as part of a new medical education program initiative, we equipped third-year medical students with MacBook Neos, securing them access to clinical information and resources as they begin their clinical rotations. Leveraging digital technology allows us to continuously improve and expand upon the traditional medical school curriculum.

Building on our innovative background and a decade of demand from faculty and students, this joint program between the School of Medicine and the School of Engineering will establish UC Irvine as a national leader in physician-innovator training, bridging clinical insight with engineering to design the future of medicine.