Accelerate New Mexico
School of Medicine
Educating Healers. Advancing Discovery. Transforming Health for New Mexico.
Transforming Health. Educating Healers. Serving New Mexico.
The UNM School of Medicine is celebrated for its innovations in medical education and has earned a reputation for making diversity in the physician workforce a priority. Its programs in rural and family medicine are nationally recognized, and its groundbreaking Combined BA/MD degree program has provided a new pathway for students from throughout New Mexico to pursue a medical career.
The School of Medicine has become a major part of the health care infrastructure for the New Mexico, with programs in 141 communities. Through the UNM Health System, our providers deliver comprehensive health services to central New Mexico and serve the entire state as the referral center for Level I Trauma and for many specialty adult and pediatric medical and surgical services.
We need your help and investment in our work for today and tomorrow. Your support, large and small, via the Accelerate New Mexico campaign makes a difference in the lives of our faculty and students, and in our ability to build a healthy future for our community and our state.
Overview:
For more than 60 years, the UNM School of Medicine has improved the health and well-being of New Mexicans through excellence in education, patient care, research, and community service.
As New Mexico's only academic medical center, we are uniquely positioned to address one of our state's greatest challenges: ensuring that every community has access to highly trained healthcare professionals. From rural clinics and tribal communities to advanced specialty care centers, the people trained at the UNM School of Medicine care for New Mexicans at every stage of life.
Our students learn early that medicine is about more than science alone. They are trained to combine clinical excellence with compassion, cultural humility, and a deep commitment to the communities they serve. Whether becoming primary care physicians, surgeons, neuroscientists, therapists, emergency responders, laboratory professionals, or social workers, our graduates strengthen the healthcare workforce that New Mexico depends on every day.
Our faculty and healthcare teams extend that impact even further. Through the UNM Health System, they provide lifesaving care, groundbreaking research, and specialized services available nowhere else in the state. As New Mexico's Level I Trauma Center and a destination for highly specialized adult and pediatric care, UNM serves patients from every county and every community.
Yet the need has never been greater.
New Mexico faces significant shortages of healthcare professionals across nearly every discipline. To meet this challenge, the UNM School of Medicine is committed to an ambitious goal: doubling the number of health professionals we educate and train over the coming decade. Achieving this vision will expand access to care, strengthen communities, create economic opportunity, and improve health outcomes for generations to come.
List of Priorities:
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Critical to New Mexico’s health care workforce is increasing the number of health care professionals we train at the School of Medicine. In addition to training medical doctors, the School of Medicine’s health profession programs include anesthesiologist assistants, physician assistants, physical therapists, emergency medical technicians, laboratory and radiological technologists, dental hygienists, and occupational therapists.
For our students seeking careers in the health care field, student debt is often one of their biggest challenges. Reducing student debt encourages students to focus on their studies and worry less about their future debt burden.
Individual philanthropy grows the scholarship pool and supports the future of health care in New Mexico. In fact, when a learner receives $5,000 in aid, this single gift can reduce their lifetime loan payments by $15,000 to $20,000. This makes a huge difference.
$4.8 million of philanthropic funding will provide student scholarships and support.
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As New Mexico evolves and grows, we must take decisive action to ensure we meet the health care demands of our state today, while planning for the needs of tomorrow. At this time, the most critical component for our future growth is the new UNM School of Medicine building, slated to begin construction in 2027. This new building will include flexible and integrated teaching, research, and community spaces that will allow us to train new generations of physicians and other health care professionals to meet needs for today and future generations of New Mexicans.
Replacing the 60-year-old School of Medicine building is key to doubling our class sizes, dramatically increasing the number of health care workers available to take critically important jobs across our state. With growing classes comes the need for more faculty, staff, and programs to support them. The current physical infrastructure of the School of Medicine is a very real barrier to achieving these goals.
Philanthropic support will leave a legacy, helping unlock cutting-edge opportunities for learning, discovery, and collaboration. Situated on the corner of University and Lomas, the new facility is not just a building, but a symbol of our state’s potential and landmark gateway to the University campus. This is a place where dreams will be achieved and opportunities realized for years to come.
$10 million of philanthropic funding will help us realize this initiative.
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The School of Medicine’s medical, clinical, and translational research solves real problems and saves real lives every day. From discoveries of how microplastics affect the body to enhancing our understanding of diabetes and lung cancer, the research done at the School of Medicine saves lives now and well into the future. For this reason, it is critically important to safeguard this research. Your gift can directly support research projects that excite you, support graduate students, and help provide resources and equipment for our labs.
$107.3 million of philanthropic funding will fund critical faculty innovation and research.
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The School of Medicine’s Dean’s Fund provides flexible resources to respond to our most urgent needs, support fundamental priorities, and ensure the School of Medicine can react nimbly to the profound changes taking place in health care education. The Dean’s Fund may support bridge funding for student and faculty development, student emergency needs, and/or initiatives that strengthen the School of Medicine.
Gifts to the Dean’s Fund cover immediate needs that revenue from other sources are not sufficient to meet and help the school overcome unprecedented difficulties and emerge as a stronger community.
$250,000 of philanthropic funding for the School of Medicine Dean’s Fund will enable us to meet our most immediate needs.
In summary:
Through the Accelerate New Mexico campaign, donors have the opportunity to invest directly in the future health of our state.
Educate the next generation of physicians and healthcare professionals across New Mexico.
Advance innovative research and scientific discovery.
Recruit and retain exceptional faculty.
Build the facilities and programs needed to grow the healthcare workforce of the future.
Every gift—large or small—helps create healthier communities, stronger healthcare systems, and greater opportunities for New Mexicans. Together, we can educate more healers, expand access to care, and build a healthier future for our state.
Patricia W. Finn, MD
Dean / School of Medicine
“As Dean, I see every day how philanthropy changes lives. So many of our students are the first in their families to attend college, and your generosity helps a young person hold fast to their dream of a career in health care – even while caring for children or parents. It gives a young researcher the seed funding to secure a first publication or collect the pilot data that grows into a cure. We have promised New Mexico to dramatically increase the number of healthcare professionals we train over the next 10 years. Your gift helps us get there. Thank you for standing with them.”
Top 20
Top 20 Best Medical Schools: Primary Care
Top 100
Top 100 Best Medical Schools: Research
66%
66% of combined BA/MD Program alumni practice primary care in New Mexico
An investment in health sciences education and research is a direct investment in the health of every New Mexican. The energy and momentum of the Accelerate New Mexico campaign is an opportunity to address one of New Mexico’s most critical challenges. Together, we can advance the health of all New Mexicans.