Keynote Speaker: Deena McRae, MD

We are thrilled to welcome Deena S. McRae, MD, as our speaker. 

McRae is the associate vice president of academic health sciences for University of California in the Office of the President. In this role, McRae provides leadership, strategic direction, policy guidance, and advocacy on behalf of the University’s health sciences and clinical training system. The University of California operates one of the largest public health sciences instruction programs in the nation, enrolling approximately 16,000 trainees across 20 schools. Schools include medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, dentistry, optometry, and veterinary medicine. 

One of the top priorities for McRae and her office is to increase the size and diversity of the state’s health care workforce, developing and supporting clinicians who are committed to improving access to high-quality care for our under-resourced populations in order to address health care disparities. 

In 2018, McRae began supporting Dean Deborah Deas in research on the wellbeing and career satisfaction of women physicians of color with the goal of finding effective strategies to improve the recruitment and retention of this important group of clinicians and leaders. In 2021, McRae and Lupe Alonzo-Diaz, president/CEO of Physicians for a Healthy California, were awarded a grant from The Physicians Foundation to continue this work, resulting in the development of evidence-based recommendations for health care organizations . 

McRae has maintained her faculty position in the Department of Psychiatry at the UC Irvine School of Medicine as a clinical professor. 

Prior roles include associate dean for Graduate Medical Education and designated institutional official (DIO) at the UC Irvine School of Medicine, and the associate chief of staff for education and designated education officer (DEO) at the Tibor Rubin VA Medical Center in Long Beach, California. McRae has also been the psychiatry residency program director at UC Irvine. Also at UC Irvine, she was the founder and chair of the UC Irvine School of Medicine Wellness and Professionalism Committee. She also helped establish the UCI School of Medicine Clinical Faculty Equity and Diversity Advisory Committee. 

McRae obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania, completed her medical school and psychiatry residency training at UC Irvine, and trained at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research. She is also a graduate of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) fellowship program.