Curriculum

We have built our curriculum around our mission, and we empower our graduates to practice in whatever setting they desire (clinics, emergency departments, labor and delivery suites, and hospitals/ICUs), in urban, rural, and global health settings, while championing health equity in under-resourced communities. Notable aspects of our curriculum that help achieve those goals include:

• Extensive acute-care training, with more rotations devoted to obstetrics, emergency care, and hospital medicine (including ICU) than is required by ACGME. Our program’s obstetrics training exceeds the ACGME description of a family medicine program with a “high-volume” of obstetrics.
• The registrar model of inpatient training, in which residents work 1:1 with an attending physician (rather than in a team structure). This promotes not only improved learning but also increased resident responsibility from day 1.
• Recognition as a RHEDI program, demonstrating our commitment to abortion and sexual and reproductive health training.
• Family medicine clinic training done in Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs).
• A ratio of preceptors to residents in clinic that exceeds ACGME requirements. This promotes excellence in outpatient clinical training.
• A robust series of didactics, to complement the superb hands-on clinical training.
• Advanced training in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS). Many of our graduates are nationally recognized practitioners and teachers of POCUS.
• A global health track, with opportunities in R2 and R3 years to do away rotations. Many of our graduates then pursue our global health fellowship and then do global health work.
• A commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism.
• Inpatient, emergency department, and urgent care pediatric training at the nationally renowned UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. 
• Training in addiction medicine (across the full spectrum of care), street medicine, HIV care, hepatitis C treatment, gender-affirming care, a wide scope of inpatient and outpatient procedures and much more.
• An extensive and growing list of elective options (acute care, ambulatory care, and away).
• Training (during intern orientation) in Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics (ALSO) and the Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP). Training in Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) is available before orientation for those who have not yet completed it.

The most recent American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) survey of graduates (they surveyed in 2023 the 2020 graduates) demonstrates that our curriculum achieves its goals. Our graduates expressed that:

• They are more skilled at Women's Health, continuing to provide maternity care 2.5 times the national average and being much more likely to practice, for example, endometrial biopsies (EMBs), intrauterine device (IUD) insertions and removals, long-acting reversible contraception placement and removal, and dilation and curettages (D&Cs).
• Half were continuing to deliver babies (compared to the national average of 10%).
• They were twice as likely to be still practicing inpatient hospital care.
• They felt much more prepared to perform, or are more likely to continue to provide, many procedures or special care compared to peers, including:
  • Obstetrics ultrasound
  • Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), including musculoskeletal ultrasound
  • Buprenorphine treatment
  • Endoscopies
  • Treatment of hepatitis C
  • Joint injections
  • Stress tests
  • Lumbar punctures
  • Intubation
  • Ventilator management
  • Central lines
  • Thoracentesis
• During training, they delivered twice as many babies as the national average.