Dr. J. Mario Molina, one of the namesakes behind Long Beach’s Molina Healthcare, will be the founding dean of a new medical school being formed at the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, officials announced Tuesday.
The new school, called the KGI School of Medicine, will take a few years to get off the ground, but will eventually focus on preparing physicians in a way that more closely matches the medical settings in which they’ll be practicing, Molina said.
“We want to change the way that students are taught,” he said. “We’ll move away from large lecture halls and more into small groups … because that’s the way they’re going to practice.”
The days of solitary practices are going away, he said; today’s doctors work in teams with other doctors and health practitioners.
And California and other states will need many more physicians as Baby Boomers age and retire. The United States as a whole will see a shortage of 122,000 physicians by 2032 as demand for doctors outpaces supply, according to a study published in April by the Association of Medical Colleges.
A third of doctors in California alone are over 60, and “we don’t have a pipeline of doctors ready to take their place,” Molina said.
Molina served as president and chief executive officer of Molina Healthcare, Long Beach’s only Fortune 500 company, for 20 years. After he was ousted by the board in 2017, Molina took over the company’s health clinics under the auspices of Golden Shore Medical Group.
Molina, who lives in South Pasadena, said he is looking forward to building a new program. “It’s not often you get to be in on the beginning like this,” he said.
The new college will aim to affect “systematic healthcare change,” beginning with the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire areas, according to a statement from the college.
Molina “is highly regarded by his colleagues for his vision, passion, expertise and leaderhsip,” KGI President Sheldon Schuster said in a statement. “He has an immense amount of experience in serving Southern Califiornia communities and we are confident in his ability to develop an innovative medical school for the 21st Century.”
Prior to joining Molina Healthcare—a company founded by his father—Molina was a faculty member at USC, where he also earned his medical degree. He performed his residency in medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital and did a fellowship in endocrinology at UC San Diego.