Building a medical school, one person at a time

Every founding story starts somewhere. For the first new medical school in the San Francisco Bay Area in more than a century, it starts with a homecoming.

Kim Oatman Bohne ’97 spent her career managing complex programs across Silicon Valley. Then, last year, she looked for something that felt more like a calling than a career. Bohne found it back at her alma mater, as the strategic programs manager for a school that might not have a finished building yet, but is moving at light speed to open its doors to future doctors.

We sat down with her to talk about what it’s like to help build something from the ground up, and why she still stops to look at the Mission every morning on her walk into work.

You’re a Santa Clara grad yourself. What were you doing before this role, and what brought you back?

I grew up here, went to school here, and have always loved it. I moved to Colorado for a few years for a job, just to try something different, but I always knew the Bay Area was home. I came back after about three and a half years, and I’ve been here ever since—I live in Santa Clara now with my husband and daughter.

My whole career has been in technical program management at a bunch of different companies throughout the Valley. But late last year, I felt like I was missing that sense of accomplishing something bigger.

So I took a step back and realized I wanted to move into higher ed—this next generation is going to be so important, and I wanted to use the professional skills I’d built to help them.

I’d always kept an eye out for openings at Santa Clara, but I didn’t think there were program management roles here. Finding one was a great surprise—learning it was tied to establishing the new School of Medicine made it a dream opportunity.

You’re the first official hire for the school. What does the “ground floor” actually look like right now?

I might be the first official hire, but really, the work started long before me.

There are so many amazing people on both the Sutter and Santa Clara sides who’ve already been working incredibly hard, so I’ve spent my first two months just trying to get up to speed.

We’re in a high-growth phase right now, and there’s a huge accreditation process ahead of us, so our teams have organized into major work streams with people from both Santa Clara and Sutter—faculty, staff, doctors, all working together. One of the big things just getting underway is the search for the school’s founding dean. Getting the right people involved in that process is a challenge, but I’m confident it’ll turn out amazing.

Sounds like a lot of moving parts. Have you worked across organizations like this before?

I’ve always worked cross-functionally, but usually within one company, or as a consultant working with outside partners. This is two complete organizations building a partnership from scratch, so it’s different from anything I’ve done.

Even small things, like they use Microsoft Teams and we use Google Suite, had to get figured out. Something as simple as checking someone’s free/busy time on a calendar doesn’t work across two separate organizations. But I was lucky and now have that visibility, which was a game-changer.

How do Santa Clara’s Jesuit values and Sutter’s mission come together in this partnership?

What makes this partnership work so well is that it unites two incredible organizations. Santa Clara brings its Jesuit values of educating the whole person, and Sutter brings genuine heart into education, along with incredible research, education, and healthcare in every community they serve.

Students will get to go into different communities and understand what those communities actually need—it’s such a powerful combination. Sutter has the research, the education, the healthcare footprint, and this partnership means students can experience all of it directly.

Two months in, what’s it actually like to show up to work on something this new?

Honestly, it’s been a bit overwhelming—learning both the Santa Clara and Sutter Health teams, navigating current processes, and absorbing everything that's already in place. Now, I feel like I'm finally at the point where I have a decent grasp of things and can contribute.

But something I didn’t fully appreciate as a student here: every morning I walk to Walsh Administration Building, and I see the Mission, especially when the sun’s lighting it up, and it puts you in the right state no matter what situation you’re walking into.

And there’s a lot of chaos in a good way—two organizations learning to work together, breaking ground on things that have never been done before. For example, I’ll call IT and say, “I need a Zoom account for the School of Medicine, so it’s for an entity, not a specific person.” At first, they’re often confused about why we’d use Zoom in this non-typical way, but it’s fun to work through.

This will be the first new medical school in the Bay Area in over a hundred years. Did that history add to the excitement?

Definitely. This is such an exciting chapter, not just for Santa Clara but for Sutter too. I’ve actually been a Sutter Health patient for years, back when it was still Palo Alto Medical Foundation. So it’s two organizations I already had a personal connection to, coming together. This whole thing is a transformative moment, and it’s only going to keep growing, and it’s an honor to be a part of this moment.

I’m the first hire, but I’m far from the last.