By Laura Kurtzman and Nicholas Roznovsky | Based on an article originally published on UCSF News
The UC San Francisco School of Medicine tied for fourth place nationally among drug and substance abuse programs in this year’s U.S. News & World Report survey of best graduate schools. The new rankings continue UCSF's streak as the top public university for graduate drug and substance abuse programs in the nation.
UCSF’s drug and substance abuse research and training efforts are spread out across multiple departments and divisions, with the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry playing key roles and working collaboratively on many fronts. Within the Department of Psychiatry, notable graduate research programs include the UCSF Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program, the UCSF Postdoctoral Traineeship in Drug Abuse Treatment and Services Research, the UCSF Substance Abuse Research Program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, and the UCSF/SFVAMC Addiction Research Program at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.
In addition to drug and substance abuse, the School of Medicine also ranked in the top 10 in five other specialty areas: family medicine, geriatrics, internal medicine, pediatrics and women’s health. The school was ranked fourth in training medical students in biomedical research and third in primary care education, the two broad categories in which the magazine rates medical schools nationally. In these two ratings, UCSF’s medical school ranks as the top public institution for research training and the only medical school in the nation, public or private, ranked in the top five in both categories.
The UCSF School of Nursing's program in psychiatric/mental health across the lifespan was also ranked among the top 10 in its category this year.
“With the privilege of being a great university comes the responsibility to serve,” said Talmadge E. King, Jr., MD, dean of the School of Medicine. “We are proud to be recognized for training doctors who will excel in all domains, whether as pioneering physician-scientists or as champions for the most vulnerable in our community.”
The U.S. News rankings are based on data provided by schools, as well as information from surveys of school leaders. Other factors include the amount of funding that faculty receive from the National Institutes of Health; the rates at which graduates enter primary care residencies in family practice, pediatrics and internal medicine; how selective each school is in admitting students; and the ratio of full-time science and clinical faculty to medical students.
Medical specialty areas are ranked based on ratings made by medical school deans and senior faculty at peer institutions who are asked to identify up to 10 schools offering the best programs in each specialty.
“Education is a core mission of UCSF,” said UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS. “We’re proud that our professional schools continue to be top-ranked in the nation, both in training the next generation of scientists, as well as training the next generation of clinicians, especially primary care physicians, which are in critical demand.”
Results are published in the magazine’s 2018 issue of “Best Graduate Schools,” which appears online today.
In addition to drug and substance abuse, the School of Medicine also ranked in the top 10 in five other specialty areas: family medicine, geriatrics, internal medicine, pediatrics, and women’s health.
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, UCSF Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, the San Francisco VA Health Care System, and UCSF Fresno.
About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.
The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Neurology, Psychiatry, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
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 top-ranked hospitals – UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland – and other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area.
