San Francisco VA Health Care System celebrates VA’s Health Professions Education Week

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Training more than 118,000 future health professionals each year to provide health care to Veterans continues to remain VA’s academic mission.

Health professions trainees participate in over 7,000 wide-ranging training programs offered at 150 VA health care facilities, making VA the nation’s largest provider of health professions training. Health professions education in VA is conducted through long-standing partnerships with 1,400 U.S. academic institutions, including 96% of the nation’s medical schools.

“VA’s health professions education programs enhance the quality of and timely access to care provided to Veterans at SFVAHCS,” said SFVAHCS Medical Center Director, Jia Li. “We want to take the opportunity to recognize and thank our dedicated health professions trainees, educators, our academic affiliates and most of all, our Veterans who actively engage in VA’s training mission. Our trainees and students often tell us the greatest reward of training at VA is serving Veterans.”

Academic affiliations play a vital role in meeting Veteran health care needs at SFVAHCS, which began partnering with University of California, San Francisco in 1960. SFVAHCS trains approximately 1,600 HPTs every year in a variety of disciplines, including most medical and surgical specialties, psychology, physical and occupational therapy, social work, and the full spectrum of nursing education.

Offering training in more than 60 clinical disciplines, VA educates physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists, physical and occupational therapists in the latest evidence-based medicine. Over 34,000 of VA’s HPTs come from Minority Serving Institutions, such as Hispanic Serving Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. HPTs support VA’s ability to deliver and sustain high-quality patient care to Veterans.

“Our health professions trainees make invaluable contributions to our Veterans every day,” said Chief Academic Affiliations Officer Marjorie Bowman, MD, MPA. “VA is fortunate to have more than 1,400 academic affiliates who share our theme: passion to learn, power to heal. The academic affiliation partnership model is vital to training future health professionals who care for our Veterans and the nation.”