The UCSF Medical Center is indeed a large institution. The Department of Pediatrics itself includes more than 120 faculty members directly involved in the Pediatric Residency Training Program (see Faculty Roster). Despite its size, the pediatric faculty is exceptional in their commitment to quality education and their personal concern for the needs and progress of individual residents.

• Housestaff Participation
• Support Services
• Clinical Coverage

We are committed to ongoing review and modification of the Residency Training Program. This process includes input from residents about the direction and scope of their experience, within the boundaries of a well-defined curriculum. The program is thus able to accommodate, respond to, and anticipate many factors, including residents' needs, burgeoning scientific and clinical knowledge, the changing needs of patients, and shifts in health policy and legislation affecting the practice of medicine.

A variety of ongoing events ensure open and dynamic communication within the Department. These include a once or twice monthly support group for interns (called "Intern Time Out"), and open meetings of the Curriculum Committee which is co-chaired by a senior resident (Dr. Chris Russell) and a faculty member (Dr. Carrie Chen) and 6 elected representatives from each residency year group as well as standing representatives. There are Department-wide housestaff/faculty picnics, "happy hours", primary care potlucks, several journal clubs, as well as sports challenges in basketball or dodgeball. There are several ad hoc and standing housestaff-faculty committees working on program development, as prioritized by the housestaff at the annual resident/faculty retreat. Additionally, our "Big Sib" program offers a welcoming, collegial connection for new residents.

Institutional support services, designed to emphasize the educational aspects of the training experience, range from scheduled lab venipuncture and Child Life programs as well as up-to-date pediatric mini-libraries at each of the five training sites. There is also a resident assistant available for the residents assigned to the inpatient services at UCSF Children's Hospital to help with non-educational administrative tasks such as scheduling MRI scans, tracking down correspondence from other institutions, etc. Computers with access for electronic mail, laboratory results, medical literature searches, and the internet are also available at all five program sites. UCSF has a superb state-of-the-art library at the main campus, which exemplifies the institution's commitment to education.

The program is committed to reasonable and humane working hours. "Night Call" is no more frequent than every fourth night averaged over the month, although some rotations are scheduled as a series of shifts, and certain rotations throughout the three years are call-free. At the end of September, 2008, two general hospitalist teams provide care to hospitalized patients on the inpatient wards at UCSF (with specialists in consultation roles); each team consists of a supervising R-3 resident, 3 R-1 residents, medical student(s), and an attending hospitalist physician.  There will also be a separate team for the higher-end, quaternary care level patients who are on Dialysis or have Organ Transplantation (the "DOTS" team) as their primary diagnosis. These three teams will also be managed by a dedicated "Night Float" team consisting of one R-3 supervisory resident and two R-1 residents, all from the same pool of residents assigned to the inpatient service for that 4 week block. Regardless of site, house officers work together to provide quality clinical care. This enables residents to leave clinical service early (approximately by 1 PM) after overnight call. An extensive "jeopardy" coverage system also exists for unanticipated absences, such as illness or family emergency.