Chief's Letter

Welcome to the UCSF Fresno Department of Medicine webpage. We hope you find the information on the site valuable. As the first community-based regional UCSF campus, we provide our students, residents and fellows with a unique and high quality training environment. Our trainees and faculty have the opportunity to practice in a busy Level 1 Trauma Center in Community Regional Medical Center and in one of the highest performing VA Hospitals in the VA Central California Healthcare System. In addition, the educational and research programs are supported by the new UCSF Fresno Center for Medical Education and Research and the Deran Koligian Ambulatory Care Center.

As an educational campus, we focus on providing a challenging and innovative learning experience for our trainees. Beginning in 2010 a group of UCSF students spend 6 months during their third year participating in a unique longitudinal training experience entitled LIFE. This experience includes the equivalent of their medicine clerkship. In 2013, the San Joaquin Valley PRIME program was initiated in collaboration with main campus, UC Davis and UC Merced. Currently eight third-year students are in the program and many remain in Fresno for their fourth-year electives. In addition, more than 50 medical students from around the country do electives with us. Many of these students become residents in our program.

Medicine residents have the opportunity to care for a diverse patient population, and they are exposed to an extraordinary array of pathologies and to state-of-the-art facilities. The VACCHCS consistently ranks in the top quartile in performance measures and patient satisfaction. CRMC is the first and most comprehensive Joint Commission Accredited Stroke Center in Central California, and provides the only interventional neurology program, the first endoscopic ultrasound program, the first advanced bronchoscopy center, and the only Pulmonary Hypertension Program in the Central Valley. In addition the Department participates in several multispecialty disease-oriented programs around heart failure, lung nodules, and chronic lung disease.

The faculty members in the Department of Medicine are all committed to educational excellence. Between 2006 and 2014, 5 of the 10 recipients of the UCSF Kaiser Award for Educational Excellence were faculty members in the Department of Medicine. The residency program is highly competitive and maintains full ACGME accreditation. The residents in the program all work with faculty mentors to participate in clinical research and many of them present their research findings at national meetings each year. Since 2008 the Department has developed accredited fellowships in Cardiology, Pulmonary and Critical Care, Infectious Diseases, Interventional Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Sleep and, most recently, Hematology/Oncology. All of these fellowships received a 5-year accreditation from the ACGME. In addition to our 64 residents and 4 Chief Residents, we now have 33 fellows in the program.

Our mission is to produce well-rounded physicians prepared for either the practice of general internal medicine or further training in subspecialties. We are proud of our many graduates’ accomplishments as ambulatory internists, Hospitalists and subspecialists. Our trainees are very successful at competing for fellowship positions around the country. I hope this short introduction provides you important information about our program and that you will review the other pages of our website to familiarize yourself with the unique experience we offer our patients and our trainees. We look forward to hearing from you.

Vipul V. Jain, MD, MS
Interim Chief, UCSF Fresno Department of Medicine
Interim Vice Chair, UCSF Department of Medicine
Professor of Clinical Medicine, UCSF