A Comprehensive List by Class Year
We hope you consider attending this phenomenal medical school, renowned nationally for women’s health. We encourage medical student involvement in women’s health at UCSF, from the moment you step on campus, until you graduate. Listed below are opportunities for UCSF medical students with our department as they go through each of the four years. We also have a National Center for Excellence of Women’s Health, which sponsors additional multiple programs and offers volunteer opportunities for UCSF medical students.
The UCSF School of Medicine has launched a new innovative curriculum called Bridges. To learn more please visit: http://meded.ucsf.edu/bridges.
The 45 month curriculum is divided into three phases: Foundations 1 (60 weeks), Foundations 2 (48 weeks) and Career Launch (53 weeks).
Foundation 1 / First-Year UCSF Medical Students
1. Welcome lunch for first-year UCSF medical students: information about research opportunities, electives and volunteer work discussed.
2. Electives at noon: Women’s Health, the Environment, and Health Professional Activism, Family Planning and Reproductive Choices, Disparities in African-American Health Care, Health of Incarcerated Women, High Value Care, Introduction to OBGYN Surgical Skills. U-TEACH is another elective in which a medical student attends didactics, prenatal visits with an assigned mother, receives a pager, and attends the birth. Students interested in OBGYN are also encouraged to take the Surgical Assist Elective.
3. Clinical Interludes: A day spent on the wards in the hospital with patient interviews and team observation; locations in Labor and Delivery available at two hospitals.
4. Four-hour shadowing shifts available in Labor and Delivery and the Gyn OR.
5. Volunteer work available at the Women's Clinic of the Homeless Clinic.
6. Research opportunities for the Summer after the first year abound, either in basic or clinical research. International opportunities also available. Applications for funding through the Office of Medical Student Research or the Office of International Opportunities for Medical Students.
Educational Opportunities in International Health
7. Career panel discussions at least twice per year, in partnership with the School of Medicine.
8. Meetings of the medical student OBGYN Interest Group (OGIG).
9. Active Medical Students for Choice (MSFC) chapter. www.ms4c.org
10. Near Peer Advising with MS4 students intending to Match in to OBGYN.
Foundations 1/ Second-Year UCSF Medical Students
1. Above electives available, plus the opportunity to be a coordinator for an elective and/or a coordinator for the OBGYN Interest Group (OGIG).
2. Shadowing, volunteer work, monthly OGIG events, MSFC as above.
3. Formal curriculum begins in Women's Health: Pelvic educators teach students how to do a pelvic exam, and extensive curriculum from birth to death in the Life Stages block on women's health.
4. Near Peer Advising with MS4 students intending to Match in to OBGYN.
Foundations 2 / Third-Year UCSF Medical Students
UCSF students can find more information at IRocket
1. Core Clerkship in Ob-Gyn for 6 weeks: Eleven sites available: Mission Bay/Mount Zion, Zuckerberg San Francisco General, UCSF-Fresno, Marin Maternity Services/Marin General Hospital, Kaiser Oakland, Kaiser San Francisco, Kaiser GSAA (Greater Southern Alameda Area), Kaiser Redwood City/Daly City, Highland Hospital, California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC).
2. PISCES and KLIC longitudinal core clerkship programs. Either one year at Mission Bay, Mount Zion, and Lakeshore during which students carry their own panel of pregnant patients and work with the OBGYN faculty preceptors over the year, or one year at Kaiser Oakland.
3. Additional two-week Clinical Immersion Experiences (CiEx) after the core clerkship: OBGYN curriculum project, gyn surgery, reproductive-endocrinology, or career exploration in OBGYN and another allied field (examples are Psychiatry, Cardiology, among others).
4. Career events several times a year centering on career and logistics of how to match in OBGYN, matching students panel where matched students tell their interview stories.
5. Near Peer Advising with MS4 students intending to Match in to OBGYN.
Career Launch / Fourth-Year UCSF Medical Students
1. Sub-internships of 4 weeks in High Risk Obstetrics, Advanced Gynecology, and Gynecologic Oncology available.
2. Outside sub-internships also available with department permission.
3. Four-week elective available in Family Planning at ZSFG.
4. Two-week electives are available in Reproductive-Endocrinology and Infertility, Maternal Fetal Medicine, and Intro to Gynecologic Oncology, among others.
5. Career advisors, usually 2 faculty per student in the department.
6. Career meetings and advising "pods" made up of faculty and residents for students intending to Match in to OBGYN.
7. Near Peer Advising with MS4 students intending to Match in to OBGYN
Some of our UCSF students take a year to do a research project in OBGYN at UCSF, abroad or another academic institution. Some students take a year to do their MPH at the University of California at Berkeley or another institution.