UC San Diego Health wrote a rulebook to protect patients. It is public, it is detailed, and it is binding on the hospital’s own leaders. So when those same leaders wanted to push out a group of trusted psychiatrists, they hit a problem: their own rules would not let them do it quietly. Their answer was not to follow the rules. It was to go around them.
Here is what happened, and why it should worry every patient.
The hospital’s own rulebook
UC San Diego has a written rulebook for its doctors called the Medical Staff Bylaws, and it is not a suggestion. It says a doctor’s right to treat patients cannot be taken away on someone’s say-so. First there has to be a fair review that weighs whether patients would be harmed, the doctor has to get a chance to respond, and if a doctor is forced out over a concern about their conduct, the hospital has to report it to the state medical board.
Those steps exist for one reason: to protect patients. They make sure no one loses their doctor until someone has actually checked that it is safe.
What “leadership” did instead
In late April 2026, UC San Diego gave a group of psychiatrists an ultimatum: raise your hours to a set level by July 1, or lose your job. Dr. Alison Reminick, who leads maternal and women’s mental health, asked for a longer runway so she could move her patients safely, many of them new mothers in one of the most fragile stretches of life. She requested a 13-month transition. UCSD leadership said no.
Look closely at what the hospital did not do. It did not open a fair review, and it did not weigh the harm to patients. It simply rewrote a job requirement it knew these doctors could not meet, then let that requirement force them out. The result is the same as firing them, with none of the protections patients are owed.
Picture a school that can only remove a teacher after a fair hearing. Instead of holding the hearing, the principal quietly doubles the teacher’s required hours, knowing she cannot meet them, and lets her “resign.” The hearing gets skipped, but the teacher is gone all the same. That is the maneuver, and it was a choice.
The story that falls apart
Here is where it unravels. UC San Diego told the San Diego Union-Tribune the policy was meant to limit “self-referral” risk and protect the hospital’s “integrity.” But those are concerns about how doctors behave, and the hospital’s own rulebook could not be clearer: when a doctor is pushed out over a conduct or integrity concern, that is exactly the situation that requires a fair review and a report to the state medical board.
So leadership is trapped by its own explanation. If this really is about integrity, they skipped the very rules they were required to follow. If it is really just about staffing, then the integrity story they told the public is not true. It cannot be both, and either answer should trouble anyone who depends on this hospital.
Why this lands on patients
The rulebook also requires every doctor to provide “timely and continuous care” and to arrange safe coverage before stepping away. A sudden cutoff of a long-term mental health relationship does the opposite. It puts patients at risk at their most vulnerable, and it forces conscientious doctors into an impossible position: abandon your patients on the hospital’s timeline, or lose your job.
This was never about one scheduling decision. It is about a hospital that kept its rulebook on the shelf, followed the letter of it where convenient, and broke its entire purpose where it counted. That is the abuse.
What we are asking for
A safe, real transition. Dr. Reminick asked for the time to move her patients carefully, and that request should be honored. UC San Diego also owes patients a straight answer for why it went around its own patient-safety process before those patients ever lost their doctors.
You can help
You do not have to be a patient to speak up. Send a letter, sign the petition, or share your story. Every voice makes it harder for leadership to treat this as business as usual.
Leave a Reply