The UCSF 49: Preparing Learners to Deliver Customized Care Across Our City

UCSF’s School of Medicine has developed a curricular framework—The UCSF 49—designed to educate Bridges Students on the 49 most common diseases and syndromes impacting Bay Area communities.

“The UCSF 49 was developed through an iterative process that incorporated feedback from clinicians, educators, and learners,” says Catherine Lucey, MD, Executive Vice Dean, Vice Dean for Education.

“By grounding our work in medical education with the public service mission of UCSF, The UCSF 49 embeds the Bridges Curriculum within the San Francisco Bay Area. This work further illustrates our commitment to public service, social and health care equity, and community engagement, and reflects the values of the 21st Century Bridges Physician.”

The UCSF 49 contribute to a ‘Uniquely UCSF’ medical education: how the School’s students learn, their habits of mind, and the competencies they will bring to the next phase of professional development.

“While aspects of the Bridges Curriculum will drive students to the dynamic frontiers of medical knowledge, The UCSF 49 help serve as curricular guideposts,” says John Davis, MD, PhD, Associate Dean for Curriculum, noting that the syndromes and disorders that comprise The UCSF 49 are more than a simple list, as they are clustered into related clinical conditions.

Organized in this way, The UCSF 49 will help medical students build robust neural networks for clinical decision making, which requires comparing and contrasting similar clinical presentations. 

The UCSF 49: Fast Facts:

• The UCSF 49 are a group of core syndromes and disorders that will anchor UCSF medical students' journey through the Bridges Curriculum. Collectively, the 49 convey the most important conditions/syndromes for students to know before graduating from UCSF.
• Learners who graduate from the UCSF School of Medicine are equipped to advance health across the San Francisco Bay Area (and worldwide), applying their knowledge gained in the Bridges Curriculum and via The UCSF 49. Our students are tomorrow’s physician leaders who will provide compassionate care, advance science, and advocate for equitable health care delivery to improve the health of our City’s communities. 
  • School of Medicine graduates can be recognized by the way they approach patients, health care challenges, and the wellness of our communities.  Through the work of the School’s talented faculty, an ethos of continuous improvement, compassion, and a spirit of inquiry, the School of Medicine’s Bridges Curriculum amplifies the enduring qualities of a 21st Century Physician: healer, scientist, teammate, systems scholar, and social justice advocate.    
• Teaching faculty at UCSF transform medical education to reflect real-world patient needs in the Bay Area, and advance science to support improved patient care. The School’s  internationally renowned faculty provide training and opportunities for clinical experiences relevant to The UCSF 49 that enable students to make immediate and impactful contributions as members of interprofessional care teams.