Program areas at MBKU
Graduate education: the mission of Marshall B. Ketchum University is to educate caring, inspired health care professionals who are prepared to deliver collaborative, patient-centric health care in an interprofessional environment, and the curriculum has been established to achieve this goal. In addition to the rigorous academic and clinical curriculum on campus, all professional students rotate through several external clinical sites to broaden and diversify their learning experiences to prepare them for careers in health care. In the fall of 2021, our total enrollment was 706 full-time health professional students representing optometry (400), physician assistant (pa) (121), pharmacy (180), master of science in vision science (0), and our internation program offering a master of science in clinical optometry (5). For the 2021-22 academic year, we graduated 41 medical master's science degrees and pa certificates, 104 doctor optometry degrees, 55 doctor of pharmacy degrees, 6 master of science in vision science, and 9 master of science in clinical optometry. The admissions process for fall 2021 enrollment is reported below. At the outset of the application period, the admissions policy committees establish standards for gpas, application test scores, if applicable, and academic index point minimums providing thresholds for admissions personnel to carefully screen and select the most qualified applicants to interview.program: optometry verified applications* 542 interviews conducted 257 matriculated class 103 program: pa verified applications* 1,936 interviews conducted 176 matriculated class 40program: pharmacy verified applications* 244 interviews conducted 222 matriculated class 35 *verified applications through the centralized application system(i.e., optomcas, caspa, and pharmcas).
Research: the University supports research within the three University programs, the colleges of optometry and pharmacy and the school of physician assistant studies. The University provides administrative, physical and financial resources to faculty and students who engage in research.the southern California college of optometry at mbku has 47 full-time faculty. A total of 16 faculty studies were active during the year, that included externally-funded studies (e.g., grants from nih, professional organizations, foundations and industry), and self-funded studies. The ms in vision science program had 12 projects active during the year and there were 3 active student research electives. Total external grant revenue for the period was $ 85,637 and there were 11 peer-reviewed publications.the college of pharmacy is composed of two departments, pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacy practice.the department of pharmacy practice has 18 full-time faculty members, with 16 as pharmacy clinical faculty and two non-clinical faculty members. During the year pharmacy practice faculty produced 17 peer-reviewed works. The department of pharmacy practice did not have externally funded reseach projects or grants during this reporting period.the department of pharmaceutical sciences (dps) has 7 full-time faculty members whose research included external grants such as one from the us department of agriculture. Total direct grant revenue for the period was $51,000 and there were a total of 5 peer-reviewed publications.the school of physician assistant studies (spas) at mbku had 10 full-time and 3 part-time faculty. Scholarly research activities are integral to the masters capstone project (mcp) which had a total of 8 completed and 38 enrolled students. There was no direct grant revenue for the period and there were 7 total peer-reviewed publications or presentations.
Clinical education vision/patient care: affiliated with the education program, the University operates full-service vision clinics on its orange county campus and in downtown los angeles, plus 4 limited-hour community clinics in orange county and los angeles, many located in low-income areas. The clinics together served 27,677 unique encounters. Comprehensive vision services include primary eye care and specialized patient services: basic vision examination; pediatric vision screening, vision care and vision therapy; ocular disease diagnosis and treatment and ophthalmology consultation; contact lenses and prosthetics fitting; low vision rehabilitation and eyewear and optical dispensing. The vision clinics provided $569,997 in public support through discounts and fee waivers. Also, 2,109 patients were served through our 18 school screening programs.