Jones returns to UCSF to become SOM Associate Dean for Students

Originally published on UCSF School of Medicine News
 

Leon (Lee) Jones, MD, has been appointed as a Health Sciences Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Dean for Students for the UCSF School of Medicine, starting in September 2016. He will succeed Maxine Papadakis, MD, who recently retired after serving the school's students and faculty for 17 years.

A board-certified psychiatrist and nationally recognized expert in enhancing the learning environment for medical students, Jones joins UCSF from UC Davis, where he is currently the associate dean for student affairs. During his more than 25-year career in medical education, he has served as associate dean for students at three major universities and been the recipient of numerous student-nominated awards and honors.

Jones has taken critical national leadership roles to design and advance strategies that enhance the culture of equity and inclusion at medical schools across the United States. He currently chairs the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Group on Student Affairs National Steering Committee and the AAMC Task Force on Redesign of the Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE). An expert in holistic admissions, Jones has served as a national educator on medical education and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), as well as for the Building the Next Generation of Academic Physicians diversity initiative. In addition, he has been an active participant in faculty and student educational initiatives designed to enhance care of LGBTQI patients, including the creation of a series of video interviews for the AAMC on the topic of enhancing institutional culture and climate for LGBT and DSD populations.

He previously served as a faculty member at UCSF from 1999-2005, when he held a number of positions in the Department of Psychiatry, including director of Intensive Services and director of the Psychiatric Consultation-Liaison Service. His passion for medical education was evident as one of the five founding mentors of UCSF's Student Advisory Colleges. He also served as director of Graduate Medical Education, working with residents, fellows, and faculty across all specialties. While at UCSF, he received numerous teaching awards from both students and residents, and was inducted into the Academy of Medical Educators and Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society.

Jones received his BA from Dartmouth College and his MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. After completing a psychiatry residency and chief residency at UCLA's Semel Institute, he entered a consultation-liaison fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, followed by a research fellowship at UC San Diego focusing on the interactions between the central nervous system and peripheral immune system.

About UCSF Psychiatry

The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a mission focused on research (basic, translational, clinical), teaching, patient care, and public service.

UCSF Psychiatry conducts its clinical, educational, and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including UCSF campuses at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay, and Laurel Heights, the UCSF Medical Center at Mt. Zion, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, the San Francisco VA Health Care System, and UCSF Fresno.

About UCSF

UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational, and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise. It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises two top-ranked hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, and other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area.