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Residency Program Overview

residents performing simulations

Curriculum

Didactics

You will have didactics every Wednesday afternoon with lunch provided. Lectures are given by our own Family Medicine faculty as well as other sub-specialty faculty. Talks are also given by residents covering general medicine topics as well as resident health and board review. Wednesday didactics are a protected time for learning and allow residents to focus on learning without feeling rushed or hurried. 

Events Calendar

Call Schedule

We have implemented a night float system on the Family Medicine Wards.

Event Coverage

Residents in our program have the opportunity to cover sports events in a number of different roles and venues. UC San Diego sports medicine fellows and faculty are integrated into teaching activities throughout the residency program and curriculum. Residents will have the opportunity to perform pre-participation physicals, cover sporting events at the high school and college level (football, basketball, soccer, rugby, etc.) and participate in community events such as medical tents at marathons and triathlons.. Residents who have predetermined special interest in sports medicine will also have ample opportunity for research and scholarly projects in the field.

In addition to sporting events, residents will have an opportunity to act as house doctor for cultural events, like the San Diego Symphony.The ability to participate in coverage events, whether sports or cultural, will serve to broaden the education of our residents in addition to sheer enjoyment of attending the event.

Sports Medicine Fellowship Program

Areas of Concentration 

Integrative Medicine

The UC San Diego Family Medicine Residency Program has partnered with the UC San Diego Center for Integrative Medicine to develop an area of concentratin in integrative medicine.

Participants start the program in their 2nd year. The syllabus is based on an online curriculum purchased from the University of Arizona, which has a leading fellowship in integrative kedicine. The program also consists of onsite activities that include: didactics and case presentations, rotations with integrative family medicine physicians, integrative cardiologists, pain specialists, acupuncturists and osteopaths, workshops in healthy cooking, mindfulness based stress reduction, tai chi and opportunities to partake in integrative medicine research.

When the curriculum is successfully completed, the resident will receive a certificate of completion from the University of Arizona. This certificate will be recognized by the newly forming National Board of Integrative Medicine and will move the resident closer to being eligible to sit for those boards.

Collaborative Care

The UC San Diego Family Medicine Residency Program, through collaboration with the Department of Family & Preventive Medicine Collaborative Care program, provides opportunities to increase family medicine resident expertise and comfort level in the areas of assessment, treatment, and intervention of mental health and health behavior problems in primary care settings.

This is accomplished through a unique experience wherein residents will engage in interactive behavioral medicine clinics where they are able to practice and perform real-time psychosocial and psychiatric interviews with complex patients from their own panel and receive consultation on how to clinically manage these cases through team based consultation from faculty expertly trained in psychiatry and behavioral medicine.

Residents will also be exposed to an integrative-collaborative care model where they are able to both offer and receive valuable training exposure in behavioral medicine through working side-by-side on a patient care team with collaborative care behavioral medicine providers.

The goal of collaborative care is to embed mental health professionals within the primary care setting so as to increase access to such services and improve the skills of providers in the screening and management of mental health conditions and health behavior practices.

Included in the delivery and training are faculty from both UCSD departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry, as well as faculty from USD’s Marriage and Family therapy program. Licensed clinical psychologists, health psychologists, MFTs, psychiatrists, and family physicians comprise this dynamic team experience.

Sports Medicine

Among family medicine residencies, UC San Diego is renowned for its excellence in sports medicine. The UC San Diego Family Medicine Residency offers the sports medicine area of concentration, which provides its residents the opportunity to become proficient in the most advanced, cutting-edge techniques and skills in athletic medicine today.

Through specially designed electives, research opportunities, continuing education and real-world exposure to athletics at all levels throughout San Diego, residents gain the knowledge needed to excel in the field of sports medicine. This program seeks to create leaders who will contribute to the advancement of the field throughout their careers. Highlights of the program include:

  •  Learning core principles of musculoskeletal evaluation
  •  Becoming proficient in organizing and conducting pre-participation evaluations
  •  Gaining competence and experience in sideline and locker room medicine
  •  Learning the techniques and indications for MSK injections, splinting/casting, and MSK imaging
  •  Becoming a member of professional sports medicine organizations
  •  Attending and contributing to local or national conferences
  •  Teaching athletes, patients, students and fellow healthcare providers about fundamental principles of sports medicine
  •  Critically evaluating and contributing to sports medicine-based literature
  •  Gaining experience at sporting events at UCSD and throughout San Diego at all levels of competition

Advanced Procedures

While all residents at UC San Diego gain procedural competence in many outpatient and inpatient procedures including skin biopsies, cryotherapy, joint injections, circumcisions, colposcopy, IUD placement, Nexplanon placement, and many others, the advanced procedure area of concentration  allows residents who identify a particular interest in procedures to spend elective time acquiring further skills. Additionally, the procedure residents are identified within their peer groups as teachers of advanced procedures.

The area of concentration begins with a specially tailored month long elective in the beginning of 2nd year. This is followed by a longitudinal training track with protected half-day weekly procedure clinic to target and master the desired competencies and skill sets.

By graduation, residents are guaranteed to be competent according to national standards in the following procedures:

Inpatient
  • Lumbar puncture
  • Paracentesis
  • Central venous access
  • Bedside ultrasound
Outpatient
  • Biopsy and excision of benign and malignant skin lesions
  • Colposcopy and biopsies

Additional Areas of Concentration

Additional expertise can be gained in the following:

EGD, Colonoscopy, C-sections, LEEPs, Cervical conization, rhino laryngoscopy, rapid sequence intubation, procedural sedation, thoracentesis, skin cancer management/resections, cosmetic procedures, and many more.

Interested applicants should contact the residency for further details. For applicants who are interested in other concentrations, the residency is open to the creation of new areas of concentrations by residents.

Resident Well-Being

Resident Advisory Committee (RAC)

The Resident Advisory Committee (or RAC) is a resident run meeting during which the residents meet to discuss issues pertinent to the residency program. It is a venue to discuss the good and the bad of the residency, a place to converse with colleagues about the program, a means to resolve disputes, a time to plan resident events, and a resource to provide input for improvement in the program.

In brief, if it has anything to do with the residency program, we talk about it here. We invite the program director, assistant program directors, and the program manager to RAC meetings. While they are an integral part of the meeting, they are there at the invitation of the residents, and the residents ultimately determine the course and content of the meeting.

RAC is a unique meeting, no other program at the hospital has one and very few residencies in the country have anything like it.

Intern Support

The first year of residency at any institution can be stressful, unnerving, exhausting, and overwhelming at times. It's also an exciting new opportunity to learn new skills and use the knowledge you stayed up nights attaining in medical school.

At UC San Diego, Intern Support is a meeting of the interns and a moderator that takes place once a month during Wednesday didactics and allows you vent frustrations, tell funny stories, discuss interactions with attendings and residents, or ask “embarrassing” questions in a confidential, nonthreatening and nonjudgmental environment.

Events Calendar

Diversity & Anti-Racism Committee

The goal of the Diversity and Anti-Racism Committee is to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout our initiatives while implementing efforts to decrease health disparities. 

More Information

Schedules & Facilities