Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Building the Most Equitable, Inclusive Medical School Nationally

At UCSF’s School of Medicine, diversity is a critical component of institutional success. But achieving the goal of advancing health worldwide and across our City requires continual work to ensure that the environments in which medical students learn, care, and discover are not only diverse but open, equitable, and inclusive.

UCSF and its School of Medicine believe that equitable and inclusive environments are essential to high­quality patient care, effective learning, and cutting-edge discovery.

In 2015, that commitment was formalized at UCSF with the launch of Differences Matter, a five-year, multimillion dollar initiative supported by the School of Medicine Dean's Office.

The School is developing and implementing strategies that will increase diversity in the academic community, train all learners to more effectively treat diverse patient populations, deliver more equitable care to our communities, design clinical research that is more inclusive of minorities and people from underserved groups, and eliminate disparities in accessing medical education opportunities.

Collaborative work at UCSF is underway to address both structural racism and interpersonal biases that contribute to inequities in healthcare for patients and education for students.

These include:

• Full-day training workshops on equity, inclusion, and bias
• Updated UCSF MD competency milestones focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion
• A committee to support educators to engage in equity pedagogy, created by the School’s Academy of Medical Educators
• Medical student orientation that challenges students to address healthcare disparities by individually and collectively learning about equity, inclusion, and bias

Learn more about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion student programs