Company Profile
Western University of Health Sciences
Company Overview
Two thousand years ago, Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, taught that the focus of treatment must not be on the disease, but on the patient. Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, founded the first school of osteopathic medicine more than 100 years ago because he, echoing Hippocrates, realized that health was more than the absence of disease – it involves the whole person and the person’s relationship to others and the world. This is an inherent philosophy within osteopathic medicine today, and it is woven into the fabric of the training of all health professionals studying at Western University of Health Sciences. In a sense, the institution is like a marble cake in that just as certain strands run throughout the cake, these intrinsically important values and tenets are found throughout the University and are clearly evident in each program.
From its inception, WesternU set out not to be just another medical school, but to be distinctive. Underlying a regimen of scientific and technical course work is a strong moral, humanistic approach to education and health care. Curricula in each program include studies in the social and behavioral sciences. Community-based faculty serve as role models for students who participate in a wide variety of clinical experiences in primary care settings, including clinics in rural and inner-city underserved areas, group practices, managed care organizations, and tertiary care hospitals. In addition, the University supports a Center for Humanism in the Health Professions that provides programs designed to instill within educators and students the importance of compassion, understanding and empathy, whether in the classroom or in the examination room.
WesternU has created its own “Educational Power” – the power and the energy to help students become compassionate and skillful caregivers. This is Western University of Health Sciences’ niche, what sets it apart. We make a promise to our students that they will leave the university with the communication and scientific skills needed to function in the modern health care system; that they will have a healthy sense of self; that they will understand and embrace people who may be different; that they will know how to learn; and that they will have an appetite for encouraging healing and wellness.
Company History
Western University of Health Sciences embarked on a special mission when it opened its doors in 1977 as the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific: educating tomorrow’s health care professionals with a combination of scientific excellence and a humanistic, compassionate approach to patient care.
From an inaugural class of 36 students in 1978, enrollment in the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific grew to more than 400 by 1986. That same year, the addition of the Master of Science in Health Professions Education program paved the way for what would become the College of Allied Health Professions, which was renamed the College of Health Sciences in 2018. Meanwhile, the University continued acquiring former Pomona Mall buildings, remodeling them for educational use.
The institution kept growing over the next decade, with enrollment jumping dramatically in 1996, when the addition of a College of Pharmacy necessitated a name change to Western University of Health Sciences.
1998 was another landmark year for WesternU, as the College of Graduate Nursing was founded in March, and the College of Veterinary Medicine — the first veterinary college in Southern California, and still one of just two such colleges in California — was established just five months later.
The first foundation-up construction at WesternU was the Veterinary Clinical Center, which opened in August 2008. One year later, the University welcomed inaugural classes in three new colleges — Dental Medicine, Optometry, and Podiatric Medicine. In conjunction with this remarkable academic expansion, the University further enlarged the physical campus, erecting a 180,000 square-foot Health Education Center, a Patient Care Center, a Veterinary Pathology Center, and a 600-car parking garage.
Were not all this growth sufficient, the University ventured north in 2011, opening the WesternU Oregon campus with 400 students at an additional site of the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific in Lebanon. The University has embarked on further expansion in Lebanon as a key part of the overall WesternU Strategic Plan, “Achieving Aspirations,” with the College of Health Sciences welcoming the inaugural Oregon cohort of Physical Therapy students in July 2021.
2016 also was an important milestone in WesternU history, as the University welcomed just the second president in its history. Upon the retirement of Founding President Philip Pumerantz in 2015, after a national search the University Board of Trustees appointed Daniel R. Wilson, MD, PhD, as president. Dr. Wilson, an internationally distinguished neuropsychiatrist, anthropologist and academic administrator, took office in July 2016 and among other major accomplishments led the University through the worldwide COVID pandemic, sustaining WesternU’s exceptional mission across all Colleges with strategy, financial management, and plans for growth despite a health crisis that necessitated extensive remote learning, physical distancing for the in-person clinical simulation classes still needed to keep students on track for graduation, and remote work for most of the University’s 1,200 employees.
In October 2020, Dr. Wilson announced he would step down from the presidency on June 30, 2021. The WesternU Board of Trustees appointed Sylvia Manning, PhD, as Interim President until a successor to Dr. Wilson could be found, and in the fall of 2021 announced that Robin Farias-Eisner, MD, PhD, MBA, would become the third president in WesternU history effective March 1, 2022. President Farias-Eisner joins WesternU after serving Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, as Director of the Henry Lynch Comprehensive Cancer Research Center and as Chief Academic Officer for the School of Medicine. Prior to Creighton, he worked for many years as a professor, administrator, and chair of gynecologic oncology at UCLA.
Today, WesternU is home to more than 3,700 students in 25 academic programs on three campuses, as well as 1,100 employees; operates multiple clinical entities in Southern California and Oregon; and is one of the most thriving enterprises in the Pomona and Inland Valleys of Southern California and the mid-Willamette Valley of Oregon.
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