About Us
The Integrative, Whole Health University.
Founded in 1911, Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCU) has been challenging convention and pushing healthcare forward for more than 100 years. Today, as healthcare leaders across the nation—from the U.S. Surgeon General to the National Institutes of Health to the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine—call for a radical transformation in our healthcare system, SCU is bringing those critical changes to fruition.
Here’s What Sets Us Apart
Our Integrative, Whole Health Focus.
All too often, healthcare providers “stay in their lanes” rather than building comprehensive care plans that include other disciplines, professionals, and approaches. In addition, they look strictly at the physical body as opposed to all the factors that may be influencing a patient’s health and well-being—genetics, lifestyle, mental health, relationships, physical environments, community support, and beyond. But at SCU, no matter what program you are in, you’ll learn to blend the best of conventional and complementary approaches (integrative healthcare) and to treat the entire mind, body, and spirit (whole health)—for true lasting wellness.
Our Unparalleled Clinical Training Opportunities.
Many of our peer institutions operate their own healthcare clinics, but those clinics generally do not give students authentic, real-world experience because the patient populations, accepted payments, interprofessional disciplines, and even weeks of operation are limited. At SCU, we operate true Academic Health Centers open to the community year-round, accepting commercial insurance, and receiving nearly 50,000 patient visits annually. SCU students in every discipline have the invaluable opportunity to participate in cutting-edge research, including grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, and gain hands-on clinical experience under the expert supervision of our practitioner faculty.
Our Unique Interprofessional Education.
Most of today’s healthcare colleges offer an “interprofessional education” through which students learn with, from, and about other disciplines. But at SCU, we do it differently. Unlike other colleges, we teach you about both conventional and complementary disciplines—not just one or the other—because we believe in both and we teach both, all under one roof.
Our Commitment to Health Equity.
When we say we believe in treating the whole person—we mean all people. One of our stated institutional values is Health Equity—the idea that all individuals and communities should have a just opportunity to be healthy. As a student, you’ll learn about the many factors that can influence individual and population health—so that you’re better equipped to reduce disparities and positively impact a more diverse range of patients.
Our Focus on the Future.
Quite simply, the future of healthcare is integrative, whole health—and we’re on the leading edge. While our nation’s healthcare system advances toward this new and proven approach, we are one of the only healthcare colleges already teaching it. At SCU, we’ll prepare you for what’s next.
“Perhaps the biggest risk facing the efforts to improve health and well-being for all, is to fail to realize that this requires not simply improvement upon the existing system but true transformation. ”Tracy Gaudet, MD
Co-Founder of Cornerstone Collaboration for Societal Change
Executive Director of SCU Doctor of Whole Health Leadership Program
“Despite remarkable breakthroughs and innovations in treating disease, the United States has worse health outcomes than most other developed countries and at a substantially higher cost…The nation has focused on developing new cures to disease but has neglected to advance the science and systems of how we deliver care, which is essential to ensuring that the right people get the right care at the right time.”National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine
“Achieving Whole Health: A New Approach for Veterans and the Nation” 2023
“We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when disability comes, but all along the way.”
Atul Gawande
MD, Surgeon, Writer, and Public Health Researcher
“This is a new principle for treatment; previously treatments targeted the cancer cells. This [a whole health approach] targets the hosts.”James Allison and Tasuku Honjo
2018 Nobel Prize Winners
SCU Quick Facts
- Accredited, nonprofit institution
- Retention rate of 95%
- Student loan default rate of 0%
- 1,500 students, 341 faculty
- 11.5 to 1 student to faculty ratio
- 25-acre campus
- 3 SCU Health clinics receiving 50K patient visits/yr (student clinical experience)
- 14 partner health centers and hundreds of clinical training sites
- 20+ student clubs and organizations
- Hundreds of events to support personal well-being (e.g. yoga, sound baths, Wellness Wednesdays, nutrition workshops, mental health counseling…)
- Wide-ranging resources to support academic and professional success (e.g. Interprofessional Education workshops, tutoring, career services…)