New Medical School Coming to Santa Clara

Santa Clara University and Sutter Health said on May 15 they will open a new medical school in Santa Clara, adding an M.D.-granting program to a region that has not seen a new medical school in more than 100 years. The school will be called the Mark & Mary Stevens School of Medicine, after donors Mary Stevens and Mark Stevens, whose $175 million gift will fund part of the effort. The campus is being built in northern Santa Clara near Sutter Health’s expanding clinical footprint. University and health system leaders said the school is intended to train physicians in Silicon Valley and connect medical education more closely with patient care. ### Where will the new school actually sit? The future campus is an 82,000-square-foot facility under construction at a site about five miles from Santa Clara University’s main campus and next to Sutter’s East Santa Clara Campus, according to the joint announcement. Sutter said its larger Santa Clara expansion also includes a planned 272-bed, eight-story medical center on its West Santa Clara Campus, targeted to open by 2031. (scu.edu) KTVU reported the school will be located in northern Santa Clara near the planned Sutter medical complex. That places the academic program inside a broader healthcare buildout that Sutter has been rolling out in Silicon Valley since last year. ### Who is paying for it? Mary Stevens, a Santa Clara alumna from the class of 1984, and her husband, venture capitalist Mark Stevens, are providing $175 million toward the school, Santa Clara and Sutter said. (scu.edu) The institutions said the donation is the largest cash gift ever made to Catholic higher education and the largest gift either organization has received. (ktvu.com) Forbes and Bloomberg identified Mark Stevens as a billionaire investor and Nvidia board member. Santa Clara said Mary Stevens serves as a university trustee. ### Why are Santa Clara and Sutter doing this now? Sutter Health Chief Executive Warner Thomas linked the school to the system’s physician pipeline. In a 2024 interview published by the American Medical Association, Thomas said California faced a shortage of allied health professionals and that more than 40% of doctors were older than 55. (scu.edu) He also said Sutter planned to expand its graduate medical education program from 220 residents and fellows to nearly 1,000 a year by 2030. (forbes.com) The May 15 announcement described the medical school as part of Sutter’s strategy to build what it called a “learning health system,” combining education, research and care. Santa Clara tied the project to its Impact 2030 strategic plan and said the program would build on the university’s work in science, technology, ethics and health. (ama-assn.org) Julie Sullivan, Santa Clara’s president, said the school would be grounded in the university’s Jesuit tradition while using technologies that assist physicians. Warner Thomas said Sutter chose Santa Clara because of what he called shared values and a more human-centered model of care. (scu.edu) ### What has to happen before students can enroll? The Liaison Committee on Medical Education is the accrediting authority for U.S. medical education programs leading to the M.D. degree, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. A new school must secure preliminary accreditation before it can recruit and enroll its first class, according to LCME guidance. Santa Clara and Sutter did not give an opening date for the first class in the materials reviewed. (scu.edu) That means the next visible steps are likely to be the accreditation process, faculty buildout and additional program details from the university and health system. ### How does this fit into Sutter’s broader Silicon Valley expansion? (aamc.org) Sutter announced a $2.8 billion Santa Clara expansion in November 2025 centered on a new flagship medical center near Levi’s Stadium. The health system said that project would add hospital capacity, emergency care and specialty services in a county where local officials said infrastructure has lagged population growth. (scu.edu) The medical school now adds an education component to that expansion. By May 15, Sutter and Santa Clara were presenting the school and the surrounding clinical campuses as linked pieces of the same long-term buildout in Santa Clara. The next dated milestone already on the books is 2031, when Sutter plans to open the 272-bed medical center on its West Santa Clara Campus. (kqed.org) Before then, Santa Clara University and Sutter Health will need to move the Mark & Mary Stevens School of Medicine through accreditation before naming a first entering class. (scu.edu)