ARCH Weeks

Based on student feedback and an evolving understanding of student needs, ARCH Weeks are currently being redesigned and renamed Physician Identity Weeks to focus more specifically on developing each medical student’s identity as a physician. Students in the classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025 will continue to participate in ARCH Weeks and can expect to see changes over the next year to reflect this shift in orientation. Students entering in Fall 2022 and later will participate in Physician Identity Weeks (PI Weeks).

ARCH weeks logoThe Bridges curriculum includes eight Assessment, Reflection, Coaching, Health (ARCH) Weeks. These week-long periods occur between blocks within the F1, F2, and Career Launch courses and include activities related to the following four key themes:

  • Assessment: ARCH Weeks include a variety of competency-based, cumulative, multi-modal assessments of student progress that integrate material over time and across competencies.
    • Formative assessment activities drive learning and provide students with holistic feedback regarding their progress toward achieving the curriculum’s milestones.
    • Summative Clinical Skills Exams and Comprehensive Basic Science Examinations ensure that students have achieved competence and are ready to progress to the next level of their training.
  • Reflection: Students are guided to reflect upon how they have progressed in multiple competencies, where they have further areas for growth, and how they integrate their knowledge, skills, and attitudes in their development toward overall professional competence and professional identity formation.
  • Coaching: Students meet with their coaches during and after ARCH Weeks to discuss their progress, reflect on their relative strengths and weaknesses, and develop learning plans.
  • Health: ARCH Weeks provide a time for students to focus on well-being and career exploration. Each week includes faculty, staff, and near-peer support activities that promote resilience, reconnection, community, recovery, and access to resources on campus.

Learning Objectives

Below are the student learning objectives for ARCH Weeks overall:

  • Describe the stages of professional identify formation
  • Reflect on their own professional identify formation and share their ideas with their peers
  • Describe and employ strategies to promote resilience and well-being
  • Describe the role of the coach in supporting the student’s competency development, professional identify formation, and well-being
  • Employ strategies for building an effective coaching relationship
  • Develop and implement an individual learning and development plan in consultation with their coach
  • Describe and demonstrate team learning and communication skills that improve collaboration and team performance.
  • Employ strategies for seeking, receiving, acting upon, and delivering feedback
  • Identify and implement strategies for individualized career exploration and decision making
  • Demonstrate cumulative medical knowledge in an NBME-style examination

ARCH Leadership Team:

Noriko Anderson, MD Noriko.Anderson@ucsf.edu, PI Weeks Co-Director
Margaret Lin-Martore, MD Margaret.Lin-Martore@ucsf.edu, PI Weeks Co-Director
Manaswini Avvari, MPH Manaswini.Avvari@ucsf.edu, PI Weeks Coordinator