Many graduate medical education programs at UCSF are working to facilitate clinical and translational research opportunities for residents who plan to make research a part of their careers. The Clinical and Translational Science Training Hub has established a research elective and other initiatives to help promote residents' career development. The goals are to create opportunities for all residents to gain a foundational understanding of clinical and translational research methods and evidence-based medicine skills, and to inspire and facilitate residents to pursue future opportunities for career development as investigators.
The program is comprised of training, career development, courses, funding opportunities for clinical research, and travel to present findings at scientific meetings.
RRTP Ambassadors
The Resident Research Training Program has appointed ambassadors for each residency program. The ambassadors will provide guidance and information to residents interested in pursuing research training. Please click on a department's name for information on that program.
Designing Clinical Research Course
Designing Clinical Research for Residents (Epi 150.03) is a course that requires 50% protected time and is taught three times a year, from July to September, in a one-month format. Because DCR requires protected time, residency programs should avoid scheduling in-service examinations or other required program activities that conflict with scheduled DCR sessions. Modeled after the highly successful Summer Clinical Research Workshop of the Training in Clinical Research (TICR) program, the elective will lead residents through the essential components for writing a clinical research protocol, developed around their own clinical research question. The tangible product of the course is a 5-page clinical research protocol. The residents will attend twice-weekly group lectures and small resident-only seminar groups led by core faculty for the CTST resident initiative, with additional faculty participating to meet resident enrollment.
NOTE: It is required for those applying to Resident Research Funding and Resident Research Travel to have successfully completed the Designing Clinical Research (DCR) course or equivalent didactic training in clinical research.
We are limiting DCR registration to the first 30 residents per track. There are three tracks in total offered each year, two in Summer and one in Fall.
There are a number of courses in clinical and translational research available to residents. For those residents with at least one year of protected time for research, we encourage enrollment in the Advanced Training in Clinical Research Program Certificate Program (ATCR). Residents pursuing ATCR without departmental support should consult CTST to determine the availability of tuition assistance.
Mentor of the Year Award
2025-2026: Jin Ge, MD, MBA, nominated by Holly Huang
"In a big public institution such as UCSF, and in a big residency program such as UCSF Internal Medicine Residency Program, it can be difficult to have a mentor who proactively guides you and actually invests time, energy, and thought in you. Jin is the only person who has done that for me during residency. Right from the get-go, he spent time understanding my strengths and areas for growth, and connected me to the right people and projects to develop them. With his deliberate guidance, I got to present at multiple conferences and even published my first-ever first-author manuscript in a peer-reviewed journal, something I had not been able to achieve despite working with many research mentors in the past during my undergraduate and medical school years. Beyond being an exceptional research mentor, I also appreciate Jin for being a life coach. His unique combination of warmth and candor, being caring yet no-nonsense, and straightforward yet hilarious, makes me feel comfortable turning to him for advice on anything, not just career and research-related matters. I cannot think of anyone more deserving of RRTP Mentor of the Year Award."
In addition to announcing the Mentor of the Year Award recipient, the RRTP would like to acknowledge the following mentors who were nominated for the award this year. Each mentor has made significant contributions to the research and career path of their mentee. The RRTP would like to express our sincerest thanks and gratitude to the mentors below, as well as to the many outstanding mentors at UCSF that make this program possible.
Nasim Sobhani, MD, MAS, nominated by Ivonne Verduzco
Megumi Okumura, MD, MAS, nominated by Kevin Dayao
Sanket Dhruva, MD, MHS, nominated by Claudia See