On May 19, 2024, the 173 graduates of the UCSF School of Medicine class of 2024 were joined by family, friends, and the UCSF community

The UCSF School of Medicine Post Baccalaureate Program (PBP) was established in the summer of 1999 to increase the enrollment of underserved, underrepresented and low-income students in medical school.

Twenty-five years later, the program is an exceptional success: 325 students have completed the program, and ninety-six percent of its alumni matriculate into medical school, with seventy-eight percent returning to practice in California and sixty-three percent serving non-English speaking patients and communities.

The day had begun as it usually did.

There was eye clinic in the morning, cataract surgeries till the afternoon, and now a few hours of “wet lab,” where UCSF ophthalmologists Neeti Parikh, MD and Madeline Yung, MD hone their surgical skills on practice bovine eyeballs.

Only this time, they’re not in San Francisco.

On May 22, 2023, the UCSF School of Medicine graduating class of 2023 was joined by family, friends, and the UCSF community in a