Behavioral Science Faculty Full-time

Behavioral Science Faculty

The UCSF Family and Community Medicine residency program has been training physicians to practice systems-oriented medicine with a focus on urban underserved populations for over 45 years. At its inception, the field of family medicine was conceived as a response to the extreme reductionism that dominated medical culture at the time. Medical science has a tendency to conceptually divide people into their constituent parts and divide them from their contexts, families, and communities. Family medicine was designed as a field to reconstitute the patient, and to explicitly consider the whole person, inclusive of their community, their history, their family, and other elements of context. In other words, the field is explicitly systems oriented. This orientation informs diagnostic and treatment decisions in family medicine, and requires that trainees become skilled at assessing and participating in complex family systems. Family physicians are expected not only to attend to their patients' biomedical issues, but to attend to psychological, psychiatric, and social issues as they relate to patients' health. For these reasons, a robust and integrated behavioral medicine curriculum is a critical element of family medicine education. The UCSF FCM residency program has developed and maintained such a behavioral medicine curriculum that is firmly grounded in a systemic and relational orientation to health and health care.

In addition, the UCSF FCM residency program trains residents specifically to work in urban environments with communities whose resources and opportunities have been historically limited. Training occurs across clinical sites that serve diverse patient populations, many of whom are uninsured or publicly insured, and who represent a wide range of linguistic, cultural, and racial and ethnic backgrounds. The burden of social stress, mental illness, and substance use disorder is high in these settings, and residents are expected to gain proficiency in using a strengths-based and culturally responsive approach to supporting, empowering, and partnering with patients. Residents also train in safety net hospital settings where the patient population reflects similar needs, again highlighting the importance of proficiency in assessing and addressing social determinants of health. The program has maintained its mission to train systemically oriented family physicians who are committed to careers advancing social justice and reducing health inequities among the patients, families, and communities they serve.

In this setting, the behavioral science faculty member will support our residents': acquisition of systemic and relational therapeutic clinical skills to work effectively with individuals, couples and families in their continuity practice; and professionalization by helping them identify and enact their own professional values and visions.

Specific job duties include resident observation sessions, resident clinical support, resident support and advising, teaching, clinical practice, administration, and scholarly activity.

Requirements include education, experience, licenses and certifications, and required skills, knowledge, and abilities.

Application requirements include a curriculum vitae, cover letter, statement of research (optional), statement of teaching, and 2-4 references.