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Bridges Bulletin
COVID-19 Elective Highlights Medical Student Contributions in Rapidly Changing Health Care Environment
After the COVID-19 pandemic led to a temporary suspension of clinical rotations for many medical students in 2020, the School of Medicine developed a COVID-19 elective to give medical students the opportunity to contribute to health care systems undergoing rapid change and adaptation. UCSF medical students spearheaded blood drives, supported patients with limited English proficiency, and examined how COVID disproportionately affects Latinx patients, as part of this elective. Mentored by faculty, students first-authored at least six manuscripts as part of this elective. The elective was organized by faculty leaders in the Clinical Microsystems Clerkship.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

School of Medicine Appoints Leadership Team for Three-Year Anti-Oppressive Curriculum Initiative

The Anti-Oppressive Curriculum Leadership Team will work with curricular leaders to enhance content, pedagogy and delivery strategies to ensure that all elements of the Bridges Curriculum are anti-racist and anti-oppressive. Learn more about the leadership team below.
  • Director, Anti-Oppressive Curriculum 
  • Associate Professor of Medicine
  • Gold-Headed Cane Endowed Teaching Chair in Internal Medicine 
  • Director of the Diagnostic Reasoning block
  • Co-Director of the Academic and Leadership Academy ALAS Program 
  • Inaugural Chair of the Academy of Medical Educator’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee
  • Associate Director, Faculty Consultation
  • Associate Professor of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care
  • Co-Director, Introduction to Career Launch and Coda courses in the Bridges Curriculum
  • Faculty Lead, Learning Environment Action Group for the Differences Matter Initiative
  • Associate Director, Curriculum Integration UCSF 49
  • Associate Professor of Humanities and Social Science 
  • Chair, Bridges Curriculum Mapping and Integration Committee
  • Faculty Lead, Pathways, Outreach, and Pipeline action group of the Differences Matter Initiative
Featured Educator
We are pleased to introduce the new director of the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program:
Jyothi N. Marbin, MD
Jyothi N. Marbin, MD has been appointed the new director of the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program. She comes to the JMP from the UCSF Department of Pediatrics, where she served as the associate program director (APD) for Recruitment and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) for the Pediatrics Residency Program; the director of the Pediatric Leaders Advancing Health Equity (PLUS) Residency Program; and co-director of the Health Equity & Racial Justice Graduate Medical Education Pathway. Dr. Marbin is an associate clinical professor and general pediatrician who practices at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG). Earlier, Dr. Marbin worked at Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland (BCHO).
Policy Highlight

Step 2 CS Discontinued – Change to Graduation Requirements
On January 26, the USMLE announced they were discontinuing the Step 2 CS board exam. As a result of this change, which eliminates the standardized patient clinical skills portion of the licensing exam series, Step 2 CS was removed as a graduation requirement from the following policies:
Education CQI Highlight
Responding to Student Feedback

With a view toward continuous quality improvement, the Foundations 1 Operations Committee focused their last meeting on feedback literacy which refers to understanding, capacity, and characteristics needed to make sense of feedback and use it to enhance one’s work or learning. Led by F1 Course Directors Susannah Cornes, Tracy Fulton, Megha Garg, and Director of Educational Evaluations and CQI Arianne Teherani, the F1 course directors applied, discussed and refined a Faculty Guide for Responding to Student Feedback to provide course directors and teaching faculty with evidence-based, hands-on guidance for when and how to respond to student feedback.

Dismantling Oppression in REGN Foundational Science Block

Led by element directors Tracy Fulton, Justin Sewell, and Leticia Rolon, the 2021 REGN faculty and staff engaged in a multi-stage iterative process to develop resources to support educators to dismantle oppression and exclusion in their teaching materials with a gender/sexual and gender minority (SGM) lens. The process, inspired by the Anti-Racism Primer and Toolkit and consultation process developed by the Differences Matter Learning Environment Action Group included developing a list of principles and recommendations for updating learning materials from existing student and faculty feedback, meeting with student advocates to create guidelines for representation of identities in patient cases, engaging all teaching stakeholders in iterative discussions about references to race and gender/sex in learning materials, providing anticipatory guidance to students about materials with known outdated language, and monitoring and commenting on anti-oppressive lapses during lectures.