Our Curriculum

Spending more than half of their PGY2 and PGY3 time on ambulatory blocks, residents are cohorted together by year (R2’s on block together, R3’s together) and form a tight-knit learning community. While on ambulatory blocks, residents provide direct clinical care in a diversity of outpatient settings and engage in small-group learning seminars with expert faculty building knowledge and skills in core and advanced topics in general medicine.

Clinical Care in a Diversity of Settings:

• In addition to providing primary care for their own panel of diverse patients in our integrated resident-faculty practice and learning core skills in housecalls, panel management and systems-based practice, residents choose from over 100 different elective clinic sites to further refine and develop their knowledge and skills in ambulatory medicine. 
• Residents also can elect to have a second primary care practice at a community-based clinic caring for a specific, vulnerable patient population.

Social and Behavioral Medicine:

• Residents meet weekly in a small-group setting co-facilitated by a Division of General Internal Medicine (DGIM) faculty member and our on-site psychiatry faculty member. Through this interactive curriculum, residents gain knowledge and develop skills in patient-provider communication, treatment of psychiatric illness and substance use disorders, behavior change, addressing social determinants of health (including interpersonal and structural racism) and provider well-being.

Research and Scholarship: 

• All residents participate in monthly Journal Clubs facilitated by a DGIM faculty member and can also elect to participate in the Resident Scholarship Program (RSP).
• The RSP curriculum includes twice-monthly interactive sessions on research methods and works-in-progress coupled with weekly protected time to do individual project work. 
• Residents are funded to attend the Society of General Internal Medicine Annual Meeting and are mentored to submit their scholarly work

General Medicine Core Clinical Seminars:

• Weekly core clinical seminars round out the curriculum providing opportunities for learning together by resident year cohort on core internal medicine clinical topics and skills in a small group, case-based format with expert clinical faculty providing instruction.

GME Pathways:

• PGY2 and PGY3 residents may elect to participate in one of the UCSF GME Pathways.