A well and meaningful life

John Chuck, ‘89, M.D., a family physician at Kaiser Permanente, attended Cal and UCLA before coming to UC Davis for his residency training. While he loves his Bears and Bruins, he mostly identifies himself as an Aggie and is grateful to have married an Aggie alumna.

“I think the level of kindness and the sense of community is much greater at UC Davis and I think that’s the real distinguishing feature of this university,” said Chuck. “If you talk to other alumni, they’ll tell you that same story.”

From his UC Davis experience, Chuck has committed his life’s work to making medical care accessible to everyone—through his professional work and his volunteerism. In his role at Kaiser Permanente, he oversees physician health and wellness for his 8000 colleagues and leverages technology to make healthcare more convenient and highly personal through such services as My Doctor Online—an online portal that encourages communication between doctors and their patients. He also volunteers at the UC Davis School of Medicine, serves on the UC Davis Foundation Board, and founded Serotonin Surge Charities—an all volunteer nonprofit organization that has raised $3 million for safety net medical clinics, breast cancer research and scholarship funds.

“Lesli and I give to UC Davis because number one, it’s out of gratitude for everything UC Davis has done for us,” Chuck said, who won the 2014 Outstanding Alumnus Award from the Cal Aggie Alumni Association. “And number two, we want to make sure that current and future generations of Californians have the same amount of opportunity we did—to come here and connect with other people, to learn from great professors and to establish the thoughts, actions and habits that will set them up for a well and meaningful life.”