Clinical Training

The first year of the fellowship focuses exclusively on clinical training in diabetes, endocrinology, and metabolism, spread across the three different training sites.

Training Sites: The Endocrinology Training Program at UCSF has three teaching campuses: Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZFGH), San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center (SFVA), and UCSF Medical Center. The three unique sites offer an incredible diversity of patients and clinical care, ranging from typical cases to tertiary/quaternary care medicine. 

Inpatient Rotations (Year 1) : The clinical year consists of four three-month rotations, with six months at the UCSF Parnassus site and three months each at the SFVAMC and ZSFG. These rotations involve extensive inpatient and outpatient exposure to the full spectrum of problems in endocrinology and metabolism including disorders of the thyroid, adrenal, hypothalamus, pituitary, parathyroids, and gonads; endocrine hypertension; metabolic bone and calcium disorders; type 1 and 2 diabetes mellitus, obesity and lipid disorders; and outpatient exposure to pediatric endocrinology. Fellows are also trained in thyroid ultrasound and fine needle aspiration biopsy and in insulin pump and chronic glucose monitoring technology.

Outpatient Rotations: Training throughout emphasizes outpatient endocrinology and consultative endocrinology. Approximately 40% of a fellow's clinical year (year one) is spent in endocrinology subspecialty clinics, including: general endocrine, diabetes, lipid, thyroid, metabolic bone, pediatric endocrine, weight management and endocrine surgery clinics. The clinical year gives trainees broad exposure to a large cadre of full-time and part-time clinical faculty (> 75 faculty members across all sites) with specialized expertise in these problems. Fellows attend weekly didactic sessions and lead weekly clinical conferences throughout the year.

Endocrinology Continuity Clinic: All fellows have an Endocrine Continuity Clinic for the duration of their training. This ensures them the opportunity to follow patients long enough to witness the natural history of endocrine disease and its therapy unfold.

Other Clinics: Fellows in their second or third year have the opportunity to attend elective clinics in reproductive endocrinology, neuroendocrinology, thyroid biopsy, thyroid cancer, weight management and obstetric diabetes and endocrinology. Clinics have associated conferences supplemented with in-depth individualized faculty training and mentoring.