Message from the Program Director
Message from the Program Director
Greetings from San Francisco! Thank you for your interest in the general surgery residency program at UCSF. Our program strives to train surgeons who meet the highest standards of clinical excellence, professionalism, and leadership. To achieve this goal, our program is built on the foundation of three extraordinary groups of people: our residents, our faculty, and our patients.
We are lucky to have some of the most talented, thoughtful, compassionate, and ambitious residents in this program. Their dedication to their patients, to each other, and to the program is truly exceptional. Our faculty are an incredibly accomplished and dedicated group of clinicians, researchers, educators, and thought leaders, who advance the field of surgery and are committed to teaching and mentoring the next generation of surgeons. Last, but certainly not least, are our patients. Throughout their training, our residents rotate through five different hospital systems and have the privilege of caring for a high volume of surgical patients in a number of health care settings, from the city’s public safety net hospital and only trauma center, to a tertiary/quaternary academic medical center, to a private, community-based hospital. Our patients are at the core of all that we do, and we are privileged to be entrusted with their care.
Despite the rise of ubiquitous, instantaneous information and artificial intelligence, the training of a surgeon will never be accomplished without hands-on care for patients and operative experience. Because of our unique position as the only residency training program in a city the size of San Francisco, we have an incredibly diverse patient population in multiple care settings. The breadth and depth of clinical experience in this program is second to none.
Underlying the program and tying us all together is a culture of professionalism, respect, integrity, diversity, and excellence. We value innovation, inquiry, and questioning of the status quo, while staying committed to serving the needs of our patients with the highest level of clinical excellence.
We do this all in the city of San Francisco, one of the great cities in the world.
As program director, I am extremely proud of our residents and our program. My goal is to provide residents with all the tools to pursue greatness, and we are incredibly fortunate to have exceptional people at UCSF that help us achieve that goal.
Yours,
Kenzo Hirose, MD
General Surgery Residency Program Director