UCSF Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Fellowship Program

The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences offers a one-year Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Fellowship Program for two fellows per year, with each fellow spending six months based at UCSF and six months based at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC). This fellowship represents an exciting opportunity to gain expertise in inpatient and outpatient consultation-liaison (C-L) work, acquire advanced teaching and leadership skills, and develop research interests in an academic setting.

The UCSF Medical Center is a 600-bed tertiary and quaternary referral center that also serves as a community hospital. UCSF is distinguished by its integration of medical research and patient care, as well as by its opportunities for clinical training. SFVAMC is a 104-bed acute care center, with a 120-bed Community Living Center for rehabilitation and extended care, located at the picturesque Golden Gate entrance to San Francisco Bay. The facility provides primary, secondary, and tertiary care for veterans throughout Northern California and is one of the main UCSF training sites. Our program values diversity and equity, and is committed to creating and sustaining an inclusive learning environment in all settings that involve fellows.

Requirements

Applicants must have completed an ACGME-accredited general adult residency in psychiatry. At the time fellows begin the program, they must have a California medical license.

How to apply

We accept both the Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS) application and the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (ACLP) Common Application, which can be found on the the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry website. If you are under financial hardship, we encourage you to use the Common Application. The required documents are your CV, a one-page personal statement outlining your interest in consultation-liaison psychiatry, and three letters of recommendation, including one from your psychiatry training director indicating that you are in good standing in your program or have successfully completed the program. In your statement, indicate if you currently hold a California Medical License; if not, please attest to your eligibility for such. All materials sent along with the Common Application should be e-mailed to the contacts listed below.

Our program starts accepting applications on July 1, and the deadline to submit an application is December 1. We accept applications from candidates eligible for J1 and H1B visas.

Curriculum

Fellows perform consultation and liaison activities in both inpatient and outpatient settings, including primary care and women’s clinics. The schedule is approximately 50% inpatient and 50% outpatient at both UCSF and SFVAMC. Fellows have the opportunity to work alongside psychiatry and neurology residents, geriatric and addiction psychiatry fellows, nurse practitioners, and social workers to provide formal consultation, triage, liaison services, short-term psychopharmacologic treatment, and individual psychotherapy. In addition to the general outpatient psychiatric consultation-liaison experience, fellows may choose to develop a liaison focus in a specialty area of interest; potential areas include infectious disease, oncology, movement disorders, epilepsy, addiction, geriatrics, women’s health, organ transplantation, sleep medicine, and bariatric surgery. Fellows also co-facilitate a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy group with cancer patients.

Fellows teach medical students, psychiatry residents, and psychiatric nurse practitioner residents in the consultation-liaison setting, with the goal of enhancing further development of leadership and administrative skills. Throughout the year, fellows are able to take advantage of both informal and formal opportunities for learning, including clinical case conferences and discussions, elective seminars, and core didactics in consultation-liaison, addiction, and geriatric psychiatry. Fellows may also engage in elective scholarly activity; UCSF is the top-funded academic institution by the National Institutes of Health and SFVAMC runs the largest funded research program in the Veterans Health Administration system.

Salary, policies, and benefits

Salary is set annually by UCSF. The fellow salary (effective July 1, 2024) is $104,453 per year.

Potential applicants may review the UCSF Graduate Medical Education website for policies, regulations, benefits, and services; the Housestaff Information Booklet is particularly useful.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are core values of our fellowship program and UCSF. More information about DEI activities and data is available at diversity.ucsf.edu.