Diversity Hub

We in the department of Neurosurgery are working in partnership with the non-profit organization Oasis for Girls to offer paid internship programs for underserved high school female youth of color (ages 14-18) to expose them to medical and healthcare professional careers with mentorship, career path exploration, and professional development through hospital rotations in labs, the OR, and other academic or healthcare locations, with research projects, presentations, and interactive activities. We accept a group of 15-18 youth per cycle with 3 application / intern cycles per year. We are expanding our programs to reach other demographics (e.g. young Black males, LGBTQ+ youth, college pre-med students). Altogether these programs are housed under the title Neurosurgery Community Internship Programs (NCIP).

RIDR is a research and academic career development program funded by the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and developed by the department's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. We provide unique research experiences and focused mentorship to students from diverse backgrounds. Our goal is to provide an early opportunity for students to explore radiology as a career choice and support the next wave of innovation in our field.

The UCSF Action Research Center for Health Equity (formerly the Center for Vulnerable Populations) carries out innovative research to prevent and treat chronic disease in populations for whom social conditions often conspire to both promote various chronic diseases and make their management more challenging. Founded in 2006, the ARC is based within the UCSF Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine and is located on the campus of San Francisco General Hospital. Beyond the local communities it serves, ARC is nationally and internationally known for its research in health communication and health policy to reduce health disparities, with special expertise in the social determinants of health, including literacy, food policy, poverty, and minority status, with a focus on the clinical conditions of pre-diabetes, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

SF BUILD is a program based at San Francisco State (SFSU) in partnership with UCSF. The overall goal of SF BUILD is to enhance diversity of the biomedical research workforce by transforming teaching and research environments at SFSU. This is done through activities at the institutional, faculty and student levels - at both institutions. SF BUILD activities are designed to reduce and even eliminate stereotype threat, which occurs when individuals experience worry about the possibility of confirming a negative stereotype about their gender and/or ethnicity. These concerns have been documented to lead to underperformance in the classroom, and even to early exist from the biomedical research field. Our approach is to create changes at the institutional level (also at UCSF), so that all students perform to their true potential and feel engaged, supported and that they belong. SF BUILD works across both institutions and involves faculty from different schools, departments and divisions. This project is funded by the NIH.

The Pediatric Diversity Committee is committed to recruiting and supporting pediatric residents, fellows, and faculty underrepresented in medicine, as well as fostering a culture that promotes and values diversity through community, education, training, and research.

The UCSF Research in Implementation Science for Equity (RISE) program is part of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institutes Program to Increase Diversity among Individuals Engaged in Health-Related Research (PRIDE). The goal of the PRIDE program is to enhance the diversity of the biomedical research workforce for junior faculty and transitioning post-doctorates from diverse backgrounds to enable them to become competitive independent scientists. The UCSF RISE program is an all-expenses paid training opportunity for junior faculty who are underrepresented in the biomedical sciences. The program involves a two-week RISE Summer Institute, focused on implementation science (ImS) and career mentoring and is hosted by UCSF's Action Research Center for Health Equity (formerly the Center for Vulnerable Populations) in July in San Francisco. RISE Scholars also complete a second summer institute the following summer and take part in year-round distance mentoring activities. The objectives of the program include (1) prioritizing research addressing health disparities; (2) learning how to produce high-quality funding proposals; (3) building research skills in implementation science; (4) gaining access to a larger national network of mentors and mentees through NHLBI and other NIH national initiatives; and (5) preparing trainees for independent research careers. RISE is funded through an NHLBI grant R25HL126146.

The Innovators in Young Women's Health Program (Innovators) is a 10-month health and leadership training program which empowers young women to create a project that uniquely addresses young women's health needs specific to their school community. Innovators are hired by the UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women's Health. Innovators is based on a positive youth development approach that emphasizes each girl's strengths and / assets. Working in teams, students develop a project for their school and implement it with the assistance of an adult ally in the school (wellness center staff, nurse, teacher, etc.). Innovators concludes in May with a celebration during which each team presents their projects.

The Youth Steering Committee (YSC) is a young women's health and leadership program for a group of diverse high school girls from SF public and charter schools. The YSC works together for 9 months to explore young women's health issues and to create a health & leadership summit for other high school girls. The YSC is based on a positive youth development philosophy which emphasizes the strengths and assets of young women and encourages them to see themselves as leaders among their peers, within their schools, and throughout their community. The YSC is designed to be a safe place where young women can come together to share their thoughts and ideas, develop self-confidence, and build leadership skills.