Dear UCSF Community,
After more than four decades of exceptional leadership locally, statewide, and nationally, Mark Laret has informed me of his intention to retire from the University of California at the end of this calendar year.
Mark’s decision caps an incredible tenure at UC, and at UCSF. In 1980, he began his UC career at the UCLA Medical Center where he built the external relations and managed care functions, led the acquisition of Santa Monica Hospital, and positioned UCLA as a leading regional provider of care. In 1995, Mark was appointed CEO at UC Irvine Medical Center in the wake of significant challenges at their fertility center. In that role, he strengthened the management team and built an enduring values-based culture focused on always doing the right thing for patients and the community.
In 2000, we recruited Mark to become CEO of UCSF Medical Center. He joined us as a three-year merger with Stanford Hospital was ending, leaving UCSF in difficult financial and operational circumstances with a depleted management team.
Mark recruited a new leadership team and developed the medical center’s mission, vision, and PRIDE (Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Diversity and Excellence) values system, all of which endure to this day. With the support of then Chancellor J. Michael Bishop, and in partnership with then School of Medicine Dean Haile Debas and the clinical department chairs, Mark and the team developed and executed a strategic plan to make UCSF larger, stronger, and better able to serve our diverse community.
The fundamentals — quality of patient care, safety, positive patient experiences, health equity, employee engagement, and operational...
Dear UCSF Community,
We are pleased to announce that this afternoon the UC Board of Regents unanimously approved key provisions that clear the way for us to modernize our historic Parnassus Heights campus.
The Regents vote today caps a years-long effort by hundreds of stakeholders both inside and outside UCSF who provided their input and support to develop the Comprehensive Parnassus Heights Plan. This milestone marks the beginning of a bold 30-year vision to transform our oldest and largest campus into a welcoming destination for our patients and employees, and improve the daily experience of living in the neighborhood.
The Parnassus Heights plan expands the possibilities for our interconnected research, educational, and clinical enterprise. New facilities designed to 21st century standards will allow us to continue attracting the best and brightest learners, researchers, physician-scientists, and clinicians. In so doing, we will ensure UCSF’s ability to drive the innovations that have improved lives for decades and have established our place among the world’s leading academic medical centers.
Among the first projects to start will be the cornerstone of the plan, a new state-of-the-art hospital at UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center that will help us meet the current and growing demand for complex health care. Additional projects that will begin in the first ten years include the new Research and Academic Building, new affordable housing at Aldea for employees and trainees, and a renewed arrival experience on Irving Street. We invite you to...
Dear UCSF Community,
With the start of the new year, we are pleased to share with you that UCSF has reached an agreement in principle on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the City and County of San Francisco on our plans to modernize our Parnassus Heights campus.
Over the past several months, UCSF worked closely with San Francisco on the MOU to align the community investment opportunities that UCSF and the City will collaborate on as part of the Comprehensive Parnassus Height Plan (CPHP).
The MOU includes investments in housing, transportation, and open space, which were among the priority investment areas we identified in dozens of meetings with our neighbors and the UCSF community during our extensive community engagement process over the past two years. It also includes our commitment to expand our long-standing partnerships with the City on community workforce development, education and equity opportunities, and behavioral health services, all in line with our Anchor Institution work.
Read this UCSF.edu story to learn more about the MOU, which UCSF and the City and County of San Francisco announced in a joint statement this morning.
City Commissioners and elected officials will be hearing updates on the MOU in the next week. We look forward to finalizing the MOU as we seek approval from the Regents of the University of California on...