San Antonio offers a comprehensive array of health professions educational programs, including a leading dental school, medical school, six nursing schools, pharmacy and pubic health schools, and numerous allied health training programs.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the region’s leading provider of health professions education, with almost 3,000 students enrolled in five schools: School of Medicine, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Dental School, School of Nursing and School of Allied Health Sciences.  Together, the schools award 69 health-related degree specialties and pre- and post-baccalaureate certificate programs. 

Opened in 1968, the Health Science Center is one of six academic health science centers in The University of Texas System.  It encompasses six campuses in San Antonio and South Texas, with more than 2 million square feet of education, research, treatment and administration facilities. 

Hispanics comprise more than 25% of the full-time student body of the Health Science Center, which is designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education.  The School of Medicine ranks second nationally among medical schools (behind Stanford University) in Hispanic Business magazine’s “Top Ten Graduate Schools for Hispanics” survey.

Students train in an environment that includes more than 100 affiliated hospitals, clinics and healthcare facilities in South Texas.  The Health Science Center also offers affiliated programs in public health with The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and in pharmacy with The University of Texas at Austin.

San Antonio is also home to the first U.S. pharmacy school offering a Spanish language certification program for bilingual pharmacists.  The new Feik School of Pharmacy at the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) opened in the fall of 2006 and recently achieved candidate status from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE).  Candidate status is the second step in a three-step process for a school to receive accreditation by the time the first class graduates in 2010.

Both UIW and the UT Health Science Center operate nursing schools, along with San Antonio College, St. Philip’s College, the Baptist Health System and Wayland Baptist University.  San Antonio College and St. Philip’s are part of the Alamo Community College District, which ranks No. 1 in Texas and No. 7 in the nation in the number of Hispanic nursing graduates.

In addition, San Antonio’s Trinity University offers one of the nation’s top graduate programs in health care management, as ranked this year by U.S. News & World Report.  Trinity’s Center for Leadership Development in Health Management, developed three years ago, combines traditional learning with a real-world approach to health care management.

Allied health programs are offered by the UT Health Science Center and the Alamo Community College District, training professionals for such positions as medical or dental assistants, lab technicians, surgical or pharmacy technicians, health information technologists, respiratory therapists, occupational and physical therapy assistants.