Clínica Tepati

Clínica Tepati is one of the oldest existing student-run clinics. It was established in 1974, driven by the passion and dedication of a group of UC Davis students and faculty from the medical school. 

Our founders set out to address serious long-term issues in the healthcare delivery system and to integrate primary care involvement that is usually excluded in the traditional medical curriculum. They established a three-part mission of health service, education, and advocacy geared towards their desire to serve a vulnerable segment of the Latino community as part of the growing Chicano Movement in the 1970s. With the support of community members and the UC Davis Department of Family and Community Medicine, the project gave rise to Clínica Tepati. "Tepati," the Nahuatl word for "healer," was chosen as the symbol for incorporating cultural identity with a genuine desire to serve.

We are an entirely student run clinic. Our volunteers are our superheroes. We are a family, comprised of undergraduate volunteers, professional student volunteers (including physician assistant students, medical students, and pharmacy students), and preceptor volunteers (licensed healthcare professionals).

Often our patients are our most powerful advocates; through word of mouth, they are encouraging others to come to Tepati and change their life for the better. Clínica Tepati is able to function due in large part to the countless volunteer hours that the undergraduates, professional students, and preceptors have contributed toward maintaining Tepati. For the past 48 years, all the hard work that has gone into keeping Tepati open has been for the purpose of ultimately benefiting those patients for whom Tepati is the only health resource readily available to them.

Our patients are our number one priority, they are the glue that holds our family together.