Student Interns

Last updated 11/21/2024.

General Internship Information

The UCSF Division of Hospital Medicine (DHM) located at UCSF Health is excited to sponsor three distinct Medical Student Summer Internships in Hospital Medicine: 

  1. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) internship
  2. Quality Improvement (QI) internship
  3. Joint Quality Improvement + Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (QI/DEI) internship

The goals of the internships are to enhance exposure for a medical student intern to the field of hospital medicine and to provide opportunities for academic engagement within our ongoing QI and DEI efforts. Each student will engage in at least two projects, work closely with an interprofessional team, and potentially also have opportunities for scholarly dissemination. A stipend is provided. We look forward to having you potentially join us for the summer of 2025! Below is general information on the internship structure, educational opportunities, dates and location, prerequisites, and stipend. Further below are specifics for each of the three internships as well as how to apply.

About UCSF Division of Hospital Medicine

The UCSF Division of Hospital Medicine (DHM) is the largest division within UCSF's Department of Medicine (DOM) and is a national leader in clinical care, education, research, and quality improvement. The Division was founded in 1996 after the landmark publication by Robert Wachter and Lee Goldman in the New England Journal of Medicine. Since that time, we have grown to more than 150 faculty and 30 staff members, running 10 clinical services and providing care for nearly half of the patients in the adult hospital on any given day.

We seek to provide the highest-quality, safe, efficient, equitable, evidence-based, patient-centered care while advancing education, research, and innovation in academic hospital medicine. We are committed to becoming a leader in health equity and justice in academic medicine. We have a fundamental commitment to diversity (viewed through every lens). We believe it is essential to enhance the diversity of the Division, and we define diversity broadly as race, culture, religion, mental or physical abilities, age, gender, sexual orientation, distance traveled, and first generation professionals. To learn more about us, please visit our website: https://ucsfhealthhospitalmedicine.ucsf.edu/.

Internship Dates & Location

In the summer 2025, the dates for the internship are Monday, June 16 – Friday, August 8 (8 weeks). June 19 and July 4 are observed paid holidays.

The primary clinical site of the internship is at the UCSF Parnassus Campus (505 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco). The QI and QI/DEI intern is expected to be on-site approximately 3-4 weekdays per week, with opportunity to be on-site more often; some project work (such as audits, observations, or interviews) may require more on-site work. The intern will also have the opportunity to complete some project work and education remotely. The DEI internship is a hybrid position, with flexibility in designing a joint remote/on-site internship.

Prerequisites

Applicants are US Medical school students who should have completed at least some medical school; for most applicants, the internship will occur between the first and second years of medical school. Applicants on a non-traditional schedule, such as those taking an additional year(s) of extra study or inquiry, are also encouraged to apply. The DEI Internship is also open to PhD students who have interest and experience in DEI within a healthcare setting.

Stipend

We will provide a stipend of approximately $6,000 to the selected candidate to cover living expenses during the 8-week internship period. This includes 5 paid vacation days (3 selected by the intern and 2 University holidays).

How to Apply

See below for each individual internship's instructions and point of contact for applying! If you are applying to more than one internship, you can bundle your application emails by sending to all points of contact at the same time. Applicants are encouraged to use individual statements of interest for each application to emphasize the applicant’s specific interest in each internship. Applications open December 1, 2024.

Reflections from Prior Year Interns on their Experience

"I learned how to conduct qualitative, thematic analysis in the healthcare setting. I learned how to do a Grand Rounds presentation and understand more about hospitalist culture. I learned how to integrate DEI/QI work into my career as a physician regardless of my specialty or work environment. I also learned how to balance my professional and personal life from getting to know the physician mentors in the program."

"I learned so much this summer! In our structured curriculum I learned the principles of QI and practical tools for implementing projects, which were helpful in grounding my project-based work. The majority of my learning came experientially from engaging in the QI process and 'learning by doing.' Skill-wise, after this summer I feel capable of analyzing a problem and applying QI frameworks to plan/test/implement solutions. The training I received in the internship prepared me to apply a QI lens to my future work and participate in QI projects throughout my training and career."

"The most satisfying part of my internship experience is the lifelong relationships I have built with my mentors and peers during the program. I feel so grateful for this because I have not yet built strong relationships with faculty at [my] SOM elsewhere."

"[The most satisfying part of my internship was] being able to collaborate with fellow interns, learn from their experiences, and directly apply skill sets learned from lectures and readings to projects."

"I was able to contribute meaningfully to ongoing projects and provide valuable data and insights to the teams I worked with, which I think is so rare in a short internship! Every single faculty member I worked with was incredible — generous with their time, passionate about supporting me in my learning, and open to my ideas and insights."

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Internship

The UCSF Division of Hospital Medicine (DHM) located at UCSF Health is excited to sponsor an immersive Summer Internship in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion available to interested medical students. We are excited for all interested candidate applications, especially encouraging applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds, with experience on issues related to DEI, and a commitment to communities that have been historically marginalized. The DEI intern will be exposed to the many facets of academic hospital medicine, including quality improvement, medical education, research, and clinical excellence through a DEI lens. The student will engage in at least two projects and have opportunities for scholarly dissemination.

Click here for more details.

Internship Structure

Project Work

The primary component of the summer internship is involvement in project work in the fields of DEI, health equity, and Social Medicine. The selected applicant will be presented with project opportunities from within UCSF's Division of Hospital Medicine. DHM faculty and staff work on a wide variety of projects in this realm, ranging from curriculum development to improvement efforts to address inequities in care. For each project, the selected applicant will be paired with a faculty member to define the goals of the project and the faculty member will provide mentorship throughout the time of the internship. Possible domains to work on include: Quality Improvement/Value, Medical Education, Research, Clinical Excellence, Clinical Informatics, Global Health, Social Medicine, and Health Equity.

Examples of past project work by former DEI Summer Interns include:

  • Thematic analysis of community listening sessions. Listening sessions organized in partnership with a local community partner, in effort to understand community member experiences of receiving care at our hospital
  • Quantitative analysis of a survey of the landscape of DEI efforts within Divisions of Hospital Medicine nationally
  • Thematic analysis of recorded sessions from the Tea House Series (Anti-Racism dialogue based curriculum inspired by the critical consciousness pedagogy of Paolo Freire)
  • Participation in systems design work to improve care for patients whose preferred language is other than English
  • Participation in a third-year medical student Internal Medicine clerkship curriculum related to health equity, advocacy and narrative medicine
  • Developing a patient experience survey to assess the Addiction Medicine service
  • Implementing a patient and family-facing survey, to understand patient experience better

Potential project areas for the Summer 2025 DEI Intern include:

  • Improving professionally translated discharge instructions for patients with limited English proficiency
  • Improving patient experience with a focus on marginalized populations
  • Improving communication with patients with limited English proficiency
  • Addressing food insecurity in the hospital setting
  • Project work with community partners

Educational Opportunities

The DEI Intern will be given the opportunity to participate in all relevant faculty development meetings and conferences, including DHM Quality, Safety, and Value faculty meetings (monthly), Quality Improvement Committee (monthly), DHM Grand Rounds (monthly), DHM Case Review (monthly), DHM Anti-Racism Task Force meetings (monthly), Global Health series (varies), and Unit-Based Leadership Team meetings (weekly). Depending on the interests of the intern, there are opportunities to join other meetings within the Division of Hospital Medicine (such as monthly faculty development meetings and bimonthly Cases & Conundrums) and within the fields of quality improvement, patient safety, social medicine, and healthcare value, including health system meetings.

The DEI Intern will also participate in a structured curriculum in Social Medicine, and will have the opportunity to attend lectures alongside UCSF internal medicine interns on pertinent topics as well as lectures with the Quality Improvement team.

How to Apply to the DEI Internship

Students should submit a completed application via email to: [email protected]. Candidates will be selected based on their academic potential and contribution to the diversity of the Division. Applications open December 1, 2024.

  1. A current CV
  2. A one-page (11pt font and 500 words maximum) personal statement describing why you are interested in the internship and some possible areas of focus
  3. A statement on your potential contributions to diversity (see https://diversity.ucsf.edu/contributions-to-diversity-statement for information)
  4. A letter of recommendation from a professional reference (for example, faculty member at your medical school, faculty member at your undergraduate school, current/former manager/supervisor)).  Letters should emphasize the applicant’s past experiences with independent work/study or potential to successfully complete project work requiring independence and proactiveness

The application deadline is February 2, 2025.

Quality Improvement (QI) Internship

The UCSF Division of Hospital Medicine (DHM) located at UCSF Health is excited to sponsor an immersive Summer Internship for Quality, Safety, and Value available to interested medical students. We are seeking applicants for an immersive experience in the real world of quality improvement. The intern will be exposed to the many facets of improvement work under the direct mentorship of DHM faculty and staff. The student will engage in at least two improvement efforts, work closely with an interprofessional team, and have opportunities for scholarly dissemination. 

Click here for more details.

Internship Structure

Project Work

The primary component of the summer internship is involvement in project work in the fields of quality improvement, healthcare value, and patient safety. The selected applicant will be presented with project opportunities within UCSF's Division of Hospital Medicine. For each project, the selected applicant will be paired with a faculty member to define the goals of the project and the faculty member will provide mentorship throughout the time of the internship.   

Examples of past project work by former interns include:

Domain(s)

Project & Example Work

Health Care Value

Accelerated Discharge Program

(Ex: Interviewed patients regarding their discharge process and experience, identified key themes, and developed solutions by area)

Patient Experience

What Matters Most to You Today?

(Ex: Surveyed hospitalists and patients to collect data on how many hospitalists asked “WMMTYT?” and how the patients felt when asked the question)

Quality and Safety, Our People

Improving Physician-Nurse Communication

(Ex: Performed physician and nurse interviews and qualitative thematic analysis to assess communication behaviors and elicit best practices)

Quality and Safety

Prior to Admission Medication Reconciliation

(Ex: Shadowed/learned about transition-of-care (TOC) pharmacy tech’s workflow for medication reconciliation, identified hospitalists workflows for med rec, and identified best practices for TOC pharmacy team and hospitalists to work together)

Patient Safety

Case Review/Patient Safety Newsletter

(Ex: Performed a root cause analysis for a patient safety event)

Health Equity, Quality and Safety

Self-Directed Discharges Equity Assessment

(Ex: Analyze dataset on patients who have self-directed their discharge, interview hospitalists and nurses on their practice patterns, and perform literature review on self-directed discharges)

Quality and Safety

Quality Improvement Journal Club

(Ex: read and analyzed a journal article relevant to quality improvement and presented this analysis to a group of hospitalists

Patient Experience

Everyone Works Together

(Ex: Interviewed/surveyed patients regarding their perception of whether their care team has worked together)

Patient Experience, Health Equity

Handoffs for patients with limited English proficiency

(Ex: Identified barriers to interpreter use and studied hospitalist practices and preferences during handoffs of care for patients with limited English proficiency)

Health Care Value

Length of Stay Improvement

(Ex: Studying potential interventions to improve Estimated Discharge Date accuracy)

Potential project areas for the summer 2025 intern include:

  • Patient Experience: Improving patient experience ("What matters to you most today?")
  • Quality Improvement/Patient Safety: Improving admission medication reconciliation
  • Quality Improvement/Health equity: Improving professionally translated discharge instructions for patients with limited English proficiency
  • Quality Improvement: Improving physician-nurse communication
  • Quality Improvement/Health care Value: Antibiotic Stewardship
  • Quality Improvement: Patient Mobility
  • Patient Safety: Catheter-associated Urinary Tract Infection (CAUTI) reduction
  • Patient Safety: Case reviews/Root Cause Analysis
  • Health Care Value: Reduction in Daily Lab Ordering
  • Health Care Value: Telemetry and continuous pulse oximetry stewardship
  • Health Care Value: Improving estimated discharge date accuracy

Educational Opportunities

The selected candidate will be given the opportunity to participate in all relevant faculty development meetings and conferences, including DHM Quality, Safety, and Value faculty meetings (monthly), Quality Improvement Committee (monthly), DHM Grand Rounds (monthly), DHM Case Review (monthly), and Unit-Based Leadership Team meetings (weekly).  Depending on the interests of the intern, there are opportunities to join other meetings within the fields of quality improvement, patient safety, and healthcare value, including health system meetings.

The selected intern will also participate in a structured curriculum in quality improvement, patient safety, and healthcare value. This includes attending lectures together with UCSF internal medicine interns on pertinent topics as well as self-study.

How to Apply:

Applications open December 1, 2024. Students should submit a completed application via email to [email protected] including the following:

  1. A current CV, including any prior work/projects in quality improvement, patient safety, or healthcare value
  2. A one-page (11pt font and 500 words maximum) personal statement describing:
    1. why you are interested in the internship
    2.  areas of interest within quality improvement, patient safety, and/or healthcare value
    3.  why you are a good fit for this internship opportunity.  Please emphasize any past experiences with independent work/study or your potential to successfully complete project work requiring independence and proactiveness
  3. A letter of recommendation from a professional reference (for example, faculty member at your medical school, faculty member at your undergraduate school, current/former manager/supervisor)).  Letters should emphasize the applicant’s past experiences with independent work/study or potential to successfully complete project work requiring independence and proactiveness
  4. (Optional) A statement on your potential contribution to diversity (see https://diversity.ucsf.edu/contributions-to-diversity-statement for information)

The application deadline is February 2, 2025.

 

Joint Quality Improvement + Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Internship

The UCSF Division of Hospital Medicine (DHM) located at UCSF Health is excited to sponsor an immersive Summer Internship for Quality, Safety, and Value and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion available to interested medical students.

We are seeking applicants for an immersive experience incorporating elements of both of the above internships to provide the intern with exposure to both (1) quality improvement, healthcare value, and patient safety and (2) diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as the intersection of the two such as improvements in disparities in care and improvement in care for marginalized populations. The intern will be exposed to the many facets of improvement work as well as many facets of academic hospital medicine (may include research, medical education, clinical excellence) through a DEI lens. The intern will have direct mentorship in both QI and DEI from UCSF Division of Hospital Medicine (DHM) faculty and staff. The student will engage in at least two improvement projects, work closely with an interprofessional team, and have opportunities for scholarly dissemination.

Click here for more details.

Internship Structure

Project Work

The primary component of the summer internship is involvement in project work for projects in the fields of quality improvement, healthcare value, and patient safety with a specific focus on projects related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, including disparities in care and improvement in care for marginalized populations. The selected applicant will be presented with project opportunities within UCSF's Division of Hospital Medicine. For each project, the selected applicant will be paired with a faculty member to define the goals of the project and the faculty member will provide mentorship throughout the time of the internship.

Examples of past project work by QI/DEI intern (inaugural intern in summer 2023) include:

  • Studying hospitalist practices and preferences during handoffs of care for patients with limited English proficiency
  • Understanding patient perception of whether their care team was working together

Examples of past project work by former QI interns with a focus in DEI include:

  • Identifying barriers to interpreter use for patients with limited English proficiency
  • Development of patient-facing materials about interpreter use
  • Studying patient out of pocket costs
  • Creating a physician guide for how to engage with patients apprehensive about receiving a COVID vaccine
  • Patient experience improvement: Surveyed hospitalists and patients to collect data on how many hospitalists asked “What Matters Most to You Today?” and how the patients felt when asked the question
  • Quality Improvement/Health equity: Identified barriers to interpreter use and studied hospitalist practices and preferences during handoffs of care for patients with limited English proficiency

In addition to the above projects listed for the DEI and QI internship, potential projects at the intersection of DEI and QI for the summer of 2025 may include:

  • Improving patient experience with a focus on marginalized populations
  • Addressing disparities in advance care planning
  • Patient safety case reviews with a focus on the impact of sociodemographic factors and bias
  • Improving communication with patients with limited English proficiency
  • Addressing food insecurity in the hospital setting
  • Improving professionally translated discharge instructions for patients with limited English proficiency​​​​​​

 

Domain(s)

Project & Example Work

Patient Experience

What Matters Most to You Today?

(Ex: Surveyed hospitalists and patients to collect data on how many hospitalists asked “WMMTYT?” and how the patients felt when asked the question)

Health Equity, Quality and Safety

Addiction Medicine in Hospital Service

(Ex: Develop a resource list for patients)

Continuing Education, Health Equity

Tea House Education

(Ex: Demonstrate the importance of an interdisciplinary, dedicated space for collaboration to drive system level action by reviewing survey data, Likert scale questions, and Thematic analysis of free text responses)

Patient Experience, Health Equity

Handoffs for patients with limited English proficiency

(Ex: Identified barriers to interpreter use and studied hospitalist practices and preferences during handoffs of care for patients with limited English proficiency)

Patient Experience

Everybody Worked Together

(Ex: Conduct patient Qualitative interviews to understand perceptions of teamwork, identify gaps, facilitated breakout sessions with hospitalists to reflect on patient feedback, and strategize potential interventions)
​​​​​​

Educational Opportunities

The selected candidate will be given the opportunity to participate in all relevant faculty development meetings and conferences, including DHM Quality, Safety, and Value faculty meetings (monthly), Quality Improvement Committee (monthly), DHM Grand Rounds (monthly), DHM Case Review (monthly), DHM Anti-Racism Task Force meetings (monthly), Global Health series (varies), and Unit-Based Leadership Team meetings (weekly). Depending on the interests of the intern, there are opportunities to join other meetings within the Division of Hospital Medicine (such as monthly faculty development meetings and bimonthly Cases & Conundrums) and within the fields of quality improvement, patient safety, social medicine, and healthcare value, including health system meetings.

The selected intern will also participate in a structured curriculum in quality improvement, patient safety, healthcare value, and social medicine. This includes attending lectures together with UCSF internal medicine interns on pertinent topics as well as self-study.

How to Apply:

Students should submit a completed application via email to [email protected] including the following:

  1. A current CV, including any prior work/projects in quality improvement, patient safety, or healthcare value
  2. A one-page (11pt font and 500 words maximum) personal statement describing: ​​​
    1.  why you are interested in the internship
    2.  areas of interest within quality improvement, patient safety, and/or healthcare value AND areas of interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion 
    3.  why you are a good fit for this internship opportunity.  Please emphasize any past experiences with independent work/study or your potential to successfully complete project work requiring independence and proactiveness
  3. A letter of recommendation from a professional reference (for example, faculty member at your medical school, faculty member at your undergraduate school, current/former manager/supervisor)). Letters should emphasize the applicant's past experiences with independent work/study or potential to successfully complete project work requiring independence and proactiveness
  4. A statement on your potential contribution to diversity (see https://diversity.ucsf.edu/contributions-to-diversity-statement for information)

The application deadline is February 2, 2025.

 Scholarly Output

The following are examples of scholarly output produced by former summer interns based on their project work during their summer internship.

  • Howlett C, Hsiang EY, Kantor MA, Flynn SJ. “Practices promoting effective physician-nurse communication: A qualitative study.”  Poster presentation, Society of General Internal Medicine Annual Meeting 2024, Boston, MA, May 18, 2024.  Published: Abstracts from the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine. J Gen Intern Med 39 (Suppl 2), S828 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-024-08797-5
  • Eniasivam A, Ockenfels-Martinez M, Harrison J, Dzeng E, Maszweski K, James I, Van Aelstyn H, Femi I, Lezak M, Joshi H. "Fostering Relationships with Community Partners to Guide Inpatient Equity Work." Poster presentation, Society of Hospital Medicine Annual Meeting 2024, San Diego, CA, April 13, 2024. Published: J Hosp Med. 2024;19 (S1): S361. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhm.13328
  • Howlett C, Flynn SJ, Kantor MA, Hsiang EY. “Discrepancies in Hospitalist and Nurse Perceptions of Care Plan Communication.” Poster presentation, Society of Hospital Medicine Converge 2024, San Diego, CA, April 13, 2024. Published: J Hosp Med. 2024;19 (S1): S211. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhm.13328
  • Howlett C, Hsiang EY, Kantor MA, Flynn SJ. “Practices Promoting Effective Physician-Nurse Communication: A Qualitative Study.” Oral presentation, NYU Langone Health Transforming Hospital Medicine Through the Care Continuum: Innovations in Patient Centered Care. March 7, 2024.
  • Shahram Y, Lowry D, Iverson N, Teherani A. “The Tea House Series: Striving Together to be Antiracist.” J Gen Intern Med. 2022 Jul;37(9):2318-2322. doi: 10.1007/s11606-022-07519-z. Epub 2022 Jun 16. PMID: 35710659; PMCID: PMC9202981.
  • Eniasivam A, Narayana S, Daya S, Lee T, Abe-Jones Y, Lowry D, Oreper S, Shahram Y, Sterken D, Rogers K, Ranji S, Del Pino Jones A, Cabrera D, Solotskaya A, Hartigan S, Shike N, Willis T, Merid O, Ajala K, Auerbach A. "Exploring Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Efforts Across Divisions of Hospital Medicine Nationally." Poster presentation, Society of Hospital Medicine Annual Meeting 2022, Nashville, TN, April 2022.
  • Chen PH, Brown Z, Oreper S, Jones M, Prasad P, Pierce L, Sharpe BA, Patel S. Predictors of Provider-Level Variation in Hospital Medicine. Society of Hospital Medicine Annual Conference 2022. Nashville, TN.
  • Gallagher A, Johnson C, Abe-Jones Y, Wannier R, Prather A, Kipps K, Hoffman A. “Validation of a Simple Tool to Measure Inpatient Sleep.” Abstract published at Hospital Medicine 2020, Virtual Competition. Abstract 227. Journal of Hospital Medicine. https://shmabstracts.org/abstract/validation-of-a-simple-tool-to-measure-inpatient-sleep/
  • Lau CY, Johnson C, Apgar S, Marano P, Lai AR, Khan A. “How Did You Spend Your Time Today? Similarities and Differences in Clinical Work of Medicine Interns and Direct Care Hospitalists.” Abstract published at Hospital Medicine 2020, Virtual Competition. Abstract 375. Journal of Hospital Medicine. https://shmabstracts.org/abstract/how-did-you-spend-your-time-today-similarities-and-differences-in-clinical-work-of-medicine-interns-and-direct-care-hospitalists/