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PRIME-US Students and Faculty Honored for Work in Health Equity

Awards and honors

Awards and honors

The Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved (PRIME-US) is a five-year track at the UCSF School of Medicine and the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program for students committed to working with urban underserved communities. The program is designed to nurture, support and equip medical students to carry out their goal of effectively promoting health equity and providing healthcare to urban underserved communities. Several UCSF students and faculty members  in the program have received prestigious awards for their contributions in health equity and social justice.

Learn more about the PRIME program

U.S. Public Health Service Excellence in Public Health Award

UCSF medical students Carolina Ornelas, MPH, has received a 2020 U.S. Public Health Service Excellence in Public Health Award, and Annie Hoang, MPH, received the same award for 2021. 

The national award is given to medical students who are public health champions advancing the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) mission to “protect, promote, and advance the health and safety of our Nation” and who are helping address public health issues in their community. Since 2012, the Excellence in Public Health Award has been given by the USPHS to visionary medical students nationally who are advancing initiatives to improve social justice.

Carolina Ornelas
Carolina Ornelas
Annie Hoang
Annie Hoang

40 Under 40


A UCSF faculty member, Monica Hahn, MD, MPH and medical student, Vishalli Loomba, MPH, won two “40 Under 40 Leaders in Health Awards” from the National Minority Quality Forum (NMQF). They were selected because they have led the charge to better patient outcomes and sustainable healthy communities.


Monica U. Hahn, MD, MPH, MS is the PRIME-US Director of Inquiry and Evaluation. Dr. Hahn is an Associate Clinical Professor at UCSF in the Departments of Family & Community Medicine and OBGYN. She is an alumnus of the UCSF Programs in Medical Education-Urban Underserved Program (PRIME-US), and currently serves as its Director of Inquiry and Evaluation, where she engages in training and mentorship of medical students. As Clinical Director and Principal Investigator of the Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center, she leads a regional network responsible for advancing HIV care, capacity building, and healthcare workforce diversification, with the goal of eliminating HIV-related health inequities and stigma. In her role as a medical educator and Clinical Faculty for the PRIME-US program and the UCSF Family & Community Medicine Residency Program, Monica’s work centers on advancing anti-oppression and Critical Race Theory frameworks in medical education and training programs. She is a co-founder of the Institute for Healing and Justice in Medicine, a hub that re-imagines the health and medicine landscape as one that centers healing, justice, and community, where national advocacy working groups, research, and resources are housed.

 
Vishalli Loomba, MPH is a first year medical student in PRIME-US. Vishalli Loomba is a Bay Area native who is deeply passionate about eliminating health disparities and centering the priorities of historically underserved and marginalized populations. Vishalli completed her undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cell Biology and Global Poverty at UC Berkeley. As an undergraduate, she developed a passion for equity and anti-racist activism through her experiences as the first South Asian Student Body President of UC Berkeley. After graduating, she conducted research on trauma-informed care for low-income women of color living with HIV at UCSF. She then helped establish the UCSF Center to Advance Trauma-informed Care and completed her Masters in Public Health, where she furthered her interest in health care delivery models. Vishalli then went on to serve as the Senior Project Manager for the California ACEs Learning and Quality Improvement Collaborative– a statewide initiative to develop the evidence base for how to effectively screen for and respond to adversity for low-income Californians. Currently, she is an MD/MSc. student at the Joint Medical Program with UC Berkeley School of Public Health and UCSF School of Medicine. Vishalli is a fervent social justice health advocate who hopes to use her talents to create an inclusive and intersectional framework for healthcare for all.

Monica Hahn, MD
Monica Hahn, MD
Vishalli Loomba
Vishalli Loomba, MPH