The UCSF Adult Psychiatry Residency Training Program is committed to launching leaders in psychiatry. We are looking for physicians who want to make a significant impact in the field and who want a training program that prepares them to be leaders in this new era of health care inquiry, systems improvement, population health, and interprofessional collaboration.
Our philosophy is that leadership comes in many different forms. There are leaders in research, leaders in education, leaders in clinical administration, and leaders in advocacy and commitment to the underserved. Training in our program means training in not only the leading health campus university in the country, but also in one of the most dynamic, progressive, and diverse cities in the world.
Longitudinal relationships
Residents have many opportunities during residency to form longitudinal relationships with patients, peers, faculty, and clinical systems. Our Longitudinal Clinical Experience (LCE) is one of the backbones of the clinical curriculum.
In the LCE, residents are assigned to a half-day clinic where they work in teams with faculty and resident peers (PGY-1 to PGY-4), providing assessment, pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, and management of a cohort of patients in a specific population (e.g., women, geriatric, bipolar disorder, early psychosis, LGBTQ+, etc.) that they will follow throughout their four years of residency. Residents have the opportunity in the LCE to receive feedback longitudinally from core faculty members who watch them develop diagnostic reasoning and clinical skills mastery across four years of training.
The PGY-2 year offers six contiguous months in an ambulatory setting, which serves as a strong foundation for residents to develop skills as an outpatient psychiatrist. The PGY-3 and PGY-4 years are conceptualized as a two-year continuum, in which a part of the continuum footprint is following a cohort of patients for up to two years.
Community tours and community-academic partners
To introduce psychiatry interns to the communities we serve in San Francisco, our program has introduced a site-visit curriculum to bring interns to visits with community partners at various touchpoints in the mental health care system. Past and planned future visits include to our city’s acute diversion units (ADUs), psychiatric and substance use disorder residential treatment facilities (RTFs), mental health rehabilitation centers (MHRCs), mental health urgent and crisis care centers, San Francisco City Hall, behavioral health diversion court, and clinics serving Medi-Cal or uninsured patients.
During these visits, residents will meet site leaders, staff, and clients, ask questions, and witness firsthand existing community treatment models and resources. After visiting the site, residents also participate in historical tours in neighborhoods such as South of Market, Nob Hill, the Tenderloin, and the Mission District, where many patients access services. They will learn about psychosocial and sociocultural topics such as housing, labor, healthcare, LGBTQ+ health, and immigration, and reflect on how these might inform their understanding of patients and the mental health care system. A deeper understanding of the historical context and built environments of these neighborhoods is in service of advancing health equity, to widen perspectives in medicine, and to build expertise in anti-discrimination and the inclusion of all people.
Integrated and collaborative care
During the PGY-3 or PGY-4 year, residents serve as consultants in an integrated and collaborative care model, in settings such as primary care, obstetrics, pediatrics, oncology, neurology, and others. The experience is highly interdisciplinary, and residents have the opportunity to participate in team meetings and clinical encounters emphasizing sequenced visits with other specialties, shared visits with other specialties, open access to mental health services, and warm hand-offs between specialty services. Residents rotate for one half day over the course of one academic year, but have the option for additional elective experiences in the integrated care arena.
Systems leadership
Residents are expected to develop leadership skills during residency and to be effective agents of change in health care systems. Our leadership curriculum reflects this vision of creating future leaders in the field, with an emphasis on understanding one’s leadership personality and styles, and team and group processes. At the end of training, residents will have led one or more systems improvement/quality improvement projects; served as members on important residency training, department, School of Medicine, and/or University committees; participated as a team leader in a variety of clinical settings, including intensive and ambulatory care services; and participated in PGY-4 leadership seminars.
Scholarship
All residents are expected to pursue several scholarly activities during their training. At the end of training, residents will have completed one scholarship product (e.g., peer-reviewed publication, non-peer-reviewed publication, poster, etc.), delivered a PGY-4 Senior Talk, and disseminated their work locally, regionally, or nationally.
The program provides residents with faculty mentorship and dedicated time for collaboration, mentorship, and scholarly work. For residents whose projects would benefit from collaboration across disciplines or professions, UCSF offers campus-wide networking and mentorship in the UCSF GME Pathways Program. For those residents interested in pursuing a career as a physician-scientist (basic science, translational, clinical, and health services research), the program has an NIMH-funded Research Resident Training Program.
Areas of distinction program
Our program currently offers seven Areas of Distinctions (AoDs), which are specialized tracks which can be completed by participating in a cluster of specialization-specific clinical rotations, attendance at case conferences, teaching, scholarship, and mentorship relationships. Residents who complete an AoD receive a certificate upon graduation.
Residents can begin to participation with an AoD at any time, though most residents formally join during their PGY3 year. Residents are assigned AoD mentors who help plan their schedules, and connect them with scholarship or teaching opportunities, based on individual learning goals.
The current AoDs include:
- Addiction Psychiatry
- Clinical Neurosciences
- Cultural Psychiatry
- Interventional Psychiatry
- LGBTQ+ Mental Health
- Public and Community Psychiatry
- Women’s Mental Health
Teaching and medical education experiences
Residents are expected and encouraged to develop as medical educators during their time at UCSF. At the end of training, residents will have served as educators to medical students and junior residents in a variety of clinical settings, and as a small group instructor in the School of Medicine’s Brain, Mind, and Behavior course.
For those interested in future careers in medical education, there is an opportunity to serve on residency training education committees, serve as a chief resident for education, and/or take part in the UCSF Health Professions Education (HPE) Pathway to develop excellence in teaching, curriculum development and application of learning theory to practice sound educational principles in the learning environment and expand knowledge in the field of health professions education. Coursework from the HPE pathway can also be applied towards a Master of Arts in Education at UC Berkeley.
Diversity of training sites
One of the strengths of the UCSF Psychiatry Residency Program is the wealth of training environments to care for different populations and practice medicine and psychiatry through multiple health care delivery models. Residents rotate through several unique and different systems of care, including:
- Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center
- A public, county safety-net hospital and San Francisco’s only Level 1 trauma center, providing comprehensive care to medically and economically disadvantaged populations, and a world leader in HIV/AIDS care
- UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital
- Founded in 1941 as California’s first neuropsychiatric institute, providing nationally recognized adult inpatient, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and interventional psychiatry services
- UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights
- Providing consultation-liaison services to both a tertiary and quaternary referral center and an important provider of primary care to San Franciscans
- UCSF Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building at Mission Bay
- Home to outpatient mental health care for people of all ages, providing a broad range of outpatient psychiatric consultation, evaluation, and treatment interventions for emotional, psychological, or cognitive problems
- San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center
- A National Center of Excellence in PTSD and the largest funded research program in the Veterans Health Administration
In addition to these core training sites, residents have the opportunity to work in community mental health clinics (e.g., Chinatown North Beach Clinic, South of Market Mental Health Services, and the UCSF Alliance Health Project), assertive community treatment programs (e.g., Citywide Case Management), and in jail psychiatry settings (e.g., the San Francisco County Jail and San Quentin State Prison). The training program is continually adding to our portfolio of training settings to reflect the growing and changing needs of the field.
Advising program
Every resident participates in our advising program and is assigned to an RTP advisor who will follow that resident longitudinally over the course of their adult residency training. The function of the advisor is fourfold:
- Provides ongoing formative assessment to residents based on all sources of evaluations
- Assists residents in professional and career development by connecting them to mentors and mentor hubs
- Advocates for and represents residents in the program
- Assists residents in curricular and career planning
Each resident receives a semi-annual evaluation report that contains data from their multisource clinical evaluations, medical knowledge testing, structured clinical observations, and teaching performance evaluations. In collaboration with their RTP advisor, residents draft individual learning and development plans that begins with critical self-reflection, establishment of short- and long-term learning goals, and a review of career aspirations, visions, and goals.
