Internal Medicine San Francisco - FAQs

All interviews and recruitment activity for the 2024-25 season will be conducted virtually. We anticipate extending initial interview offers on Monday, October 14. Subsequent interview invitations will be offered on a rolling basis throughout the season as space permits. Invited candidates can self-schedule interviews via Thalamus.

We will conduct Categorical Track and Internal Medicine/Preventive Medicine (IM/PM) Track interviews from mid-October 2024 through mid-January 2025, and Preliminary Track interviews from mid-October 2024 through early December 2024.

Program signals will be one of the elements we consider as part of our holistic review of candidates during the screening and review process.

We highly encourage candidates for our Preliminary Track to include a Department of Medicine Summary Letter of Evaluation among your recommendation letters, though it is not mandatory. Due to the requirement that ophthalmology programs adopt a joint or integrated program format, we regret that we cannot consider applicants pursuing ophthalmology.

Invited applicants for the combined IM/PM Track will have two separate interview sessions, one with each residency program. We will interview you as part of a Categorical Track interview half-day, and the UCSF Public Health and General Preventive Medicine program will conduct their own separate interview, which may occur on the same day or a different one. Each interview is scheduled separately.

There are 45 residents and interns in our program, plus 2 chief residents. Each intern class has 10 Categorical positions, 2 combined IM/PM positions, and 7 Preliminary positions.

Our program offers the best qualities of a university program, being based at our academic teaching institution in the diverse, urban setting of San Francisco, while our program size promotes a close-knit, family-like community and a supportive, safe learning environment. Residents benefit from a diverse range of clinical and educational experiences, a balanced rotation schedule, strong mentorship, and ample opportunities for research, among others. Our graduates consistently achieve notable success in their chosen career path after completing their training.

We do not have a traditional on-call system. For the wards, we have a system of Admitting and Rounding teams as outlined below. There is a Night Float system for both Wards and ICU.

Yes. We have a strict census cap of 14 patients per ward team, or 7 patients per intern. The hospitalist ward team with one attending and one resident has a cap of 12 patients. There is also a limit to the number of new admissions during a 24-hour period: no more than 3 new patients per intern (6 per team) for conventional ward teams, and no more than 3 new admissions for the hospitalist ward team.

Yes. Overnight admissions to the Wards and ICU are handled by the Night Float Admitting Resident and the Night Float ICU Resident, respectively, both with back-up from the in-house hospitalist and ICU attending. Two Night Float Interns handle overnight cross-cover responsibilities for the Wards and ICU patients.

Kaiser Permanente San Francisco offers comprehensive ancillary services, with around-the-clock support for phlebotomy, respiratory therapy, radiology services, patient transportation, and clerical services. Residents also benefit from a multidisciplinary team approach within our integrated healthcare system, collaborating with pharmacists, medical social workers, patient care coordinators, case managers, and unit assistants.

This system was implemented to mirror the admitting models commonly seen in hospitalist practices, and to avoid “boluses” of new admissions in favor of a “slow drip”, round robin distribution of patients. This has resulted in an improved educational experience and increased predictability of the workday on the wards. (This model does not apply to the ICU.)

Admitting teams evaluate and treat patients at the time of their initial presentation to the ED. This practice sharpens their clinical reasoning, acute management, and triage skills. Rounding teams are based on the hospital wards and are not called upon to admit patients. This allows them to better focus on their current inpatients with fewer disruptions to teaching and patient care activities. Rounding teams assume care for new patients following a warm handoff from the admitting team.

Our goal is to provide residents with an authentic and meaningful primary care experience. We support residents in building their own patient panel, and design rotation schedules so residents can maintain a regular presence in their continuity clinic. This includes a X+Y schedule for the R2 and R3 years, which features alternating 4-week blocks of inpatient and outpatient experiences. Faculty preceptors lead ambulatory didactics and utilize the Yale Office-Based Medicine Curriculum as a framework to emphasize an evidence-based approach to ambulatory medicine.

We serve a local patient population with tremendous socioeconomic, ethnic, gender, and cultural diversity. In San Francisco, non-Hispanic whites make up less than half of the population, and nearly half of all households speak a language other than English. We provide healthcare not only to patients with traditional Kaiser insurance, but also care for more Medicare patients than any other health system, as well as individuals without health insurance. Our patients frequently face challenges with housing and food insecurity, substance use, and limited health literacy.

We also believe it is important for our residents to gain experience working in different healthcare environments. All second-year residents spend two weeks rotating at the emergency department at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, which is the main safety net hospital for our county. Residents also care for uninsured patients at the Clinic by the Bay during their Ambulatory rotation.

Our goal is to create a welcoming and safe work environment where every resident feels valued and part of the community. Our recruitment process includes anti-bias measures and a comprehensive review of applicants, aiming to attract individuals from diverse backgrounds and life experiences. We engage in outreach efforts with organizations such as the Student National Medical Association and the Latino Medical Student Organization, and are proud to host medical students in the Kaiser Permanente Introduction to Integrated Health Care program.

Absolutely! Many physician leaders in the Kaiser Division of Research are based at Kaiser San Francisco and serve as research mentors. Residents engage in various forms of scholarly activity, including research projects, poster presentations, abstracts, and quality improvement initiatives. Resident research projects vary from individual projects to collaborative efforts with other residents or staff physicians, and often culminate in presentations at medical society meetings and journal publications.

Our GME Research Program Manager, Aida Shirazi, PhD, supports our residents through all stages of a research project, from developing a research proposal to designing the study, applying statistical methods, and preparing manuscripts. She also serves as a liaison with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and its team of researchers, scholars, and the Biostatistical Consulting Unit that provides biostatistician support for residents and fellows with their research.

Approximately half of each class of residents pursues subspecialty training. Historically, they have achieved an extremely high level of success in matching into competitive fellowship programs.

Again, highly successful! Traditionally, about one-fourth of each graduating class pursues a career in primary care and another fourth chooses a career in hospital medicine. Our residents learn firsthand the many benefits of practicing medicine in a fully integrated healthcare system, and thus many choose to stay within the Kaiser Permanente system upon graduation.

Our three-year rolling program pass rate for the American Board of Internal Medicine certifying examination between 2021-2023 is 100%.

All residents have at least one day in seven free of clinical duties and required education when averaged over four weeks, and at least eight hours off between all scheduled periods of clinical work and education.

First-year residents have 3 weeks of paid vacation, while second- and third-year residents have 4 weeks of paid vacation. Vacation time is taken during elective rotations. There are also 5 days of educational leave for interns and residents.

Kaiser residents enjoy very competitive salaries and benefits. For each academic year, every resident receives an $8,000 housing stipend, a $1,000 educational stipend, and a $720 wellness stipend. The residency program also pays for resident parking fees and medical licensing fees. New KP residents are provided with a one-time $1,000 relocation stipend. Graduating residents receive a one-time $1,500 stipend towards a board preparation course and a one-time $1,500 stipend towards the board certification examination fee.

Resident wellness is an important part of our culture, as we believe that learners cannot realize their full potential unless they attend to their own physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing. Residents benefit from supportive mentors, responsive program leadership, and a wellness stipend. There is a range of free mental health services available to residents including our Employee Assistance Program and streamlined access to mental health services. Additionally, there is a Supplemental Medical Plan that provides additional coverage beyond the medical benefits provided by Kaiser Foundation Health Plan coverage.

Outside of work, residents have an abundance of recreational activities in the Bay Area and Northern California to find ways to recharge.

We encourage interested applicants to either contact our 2024-2025 chief residents, Dr. Cynthia Chalk and Dr. Alex Chang, by email or by phone at (415) 833-3814.
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