Frequently Asked Questions
Where do residents live?
Residents live as close as walking distance to the hospital in Hillcrest and as far as Chula Vista. It really depends on you! If you want to live in a high-rise downtown, you can do that. If you would rather a little house near the beach, you can do that too! Areas that the current residents live are Hillcrest, North Park, University Heights, Pacific Beach, Mission Valley, Ocean Beach, and La Jolla among others. You can find a condo, townhouse, house, or high-rise. It all depends on you!
How much is rent?
Citywide, the median rent currently stands at $1,998 for a 1-bedroom apartment and $2,576 for a 2-bedroom. Across all bedroom sizes (ie, the entire rental market), the median rent is $2,430. (2023) The cost of rent varies depending on several factors, including location, size, and quality.
What type of patients do we treat?
We see a variety of patients from different ethnic and economic backgrounds. Spanish is the primary foreign language and approximately 30% of our patients speak English as a second language. We take a variety of PPO and HMO insurance plans.
How well do other services get along with Family Medicine?
Family Medicine is well respected within the UCSD system. When our residents are working on a different service they are accepted as, and expected to be, an integral part of the team. A valuable part of being a family medicine intern is that ability to form relationships with different residents in other specialties which makes for a great learning experience.
What opportunities do you have to sub-specialize or prepare for fellowship?
The second and third year of our program allow for elective time that can be used to follow any interest you may have. We have specialized tracks in in sports medicine, procedures, integrative medicine, lifestyle medicine and women's health that are designed to enhance the elective opportunities in these areas.
What is the sports medicine exposure at UCSD?
In our curriculum, we have 4 weeks of sports medicine with our Primary Care Sports Medicine specialists, 2 weeks of Orthopedics clinic and many great sports medicine opportunities during our elective time.
While working on our Orthopedics rotation, we rotate through their many clinics including Trauma/Fracture care, Sports Medicine, Spine, Joint, Upper extremity, and Foot/Ankle. We receive excellent teaching from attending's, fellows, and residents.
Here at UCSD, we are fortunate to be associated with one of the oldest primary care sports medicine fellowships. The directors of the fellowship are faculty on our staff, and we interact with them in many different settings, whether it is during Wednesday didactics, on our sports medicine rotation, or when they attend at our continuity clinics. Each year, in association with the fellowship, the residents spend two full afternoons of didactics doing a "musculoskeletal consortium". During these afternoons, the focus is on one joint of the body. We receive lectures from our sports medicine attendings and fellows, then apply what we have learned by performing ultrasounds and a fresh dissection of the joint in the UCSD anatomy lab.
For those who are interested in sports coverage, the sports medicine fellows are always available and happy to have residents join them at sporting events, including many different UCSD teams, high school football, or local marathons. Several years ago, the residents started covering their own high school football team at Mira Mesa, where we not only received excellent on field experience, but also became trained in Impact concussion testing.
How many of your FM faculty practice OB?
Eight. Drs. Brady, Wu, Gin, Celebi, Reddy, Rosen, Rosenblum, and Wang. Of the eight, Dr. Brady, Dr. Gin, Dr. Rosenblum and Dr. Reddy also perform C-sections.
Do you have an EMR?
UCSD Hillcrest, Thornton, Jacobs and Rady Children's hospitals have Epic EMR as do the UCSD outpatient clinics. A couple non-UCSD offsite rotations still use paper charts. However, most of the non-UCSD offsite rotations - including Balboa, Neighborhood Health, and Kaiser - have EMR as well, although they are slightly different than UCSD's system. Offsite rotations coordinate your access to their system and give you a brief tutorial when you start the rotation.
How long is your accreditation cycle?
We have been accredited for the maximum cycle of every 10 years.
Will being from out of state hurt my chances of matching at UCSD?
Absolutely not. Typically 50% of our residents are from outside the state of California. Our mission is simple: find the best residents in the entire country.