University of California San Francisco East Bay Program

Program Identity & Fit

UCSF-East Bay is a university-affiliated general surgery program anchored at Alameda Health System's Highland Hospital, a Northern Alameda County safety-net trauma and acute care surgery center, with additional rotations at Kaiser Permanente, the San Francisco VA, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, and UCSF Medical Center. The program is built around high-acuity trauma, acute care surgery, and vascular disease in an underserved county population, with residents graduating having logged over 800 major cases each, exceeding ABS case-log minimums across all categories. Research is described as "a centerpiece" of training: after PGY3, residents complete a dedicated research year placed in basic science or clinical labs at institutions nationwide (Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, UC Davis, Kaiser Division of Research, UC Berkeley digital health/robotics groups), producing a strong track record of resident-driven scholarship in trauma, global surgery, health disparities, and surgical innovation. The program appears to value residents who thrive in a high-volume, safety-net trauma environment while also pursuing an academic research trajectory, often toward subspecialty fellowship.