The overall goal of the Academic Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology Training Program at UCSF is to provide advanced research training to qualified individuals with MD, MD/PhD, or PhD degrees who plan to pursue careers in academic rheumatology. This program provides trainees with an environment in which they can: (1) pursue course work in a chosen area of concentration; (2) learn how to investigate a scientific problem in depth; (3) master state-of-the-art techniques; and (4) understand what constitutes good science. Training in our program takes advantage of the resources of the Rheumatology Divisions at Moffitt-Long University Hospital, San Francisco General Hospital, and the San Francisco VA Medical Center. In addition, our training grant is one of the few, if not the only training grant that supports training in both adult and pediatric rheumatology/immunology. The integration of pediatric rheumatology into our training grant was a major goal of the current grant cycle, and it has produced one of the major achievements by preparing the first three pediatric trainees for faculty positions at top academic centers (Cornell, Colorado, and UCSF). The UCSF program in Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology has diverse strengths that provide a broad range of opportunities for trainees. For over two decades, our program has had particular strength in two of the most rapidly developing areas of medical science - basic biomedical research, and health services research/outcomes research. These areas of strength are at the heart of the unprecedented recent advances in basic science and the important national debate and evolution in health care delivery. More recently, we have added two major new research programs: genetic epidemiology of rheumatic diseases, and clinical trials of novel biologic therapies for rheumatic diseases. This breadth of activity creates an outstanding environment for collaboration among faculty and trainees in the Departments of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Immunology. In this context, substantive interactions among basic scientists and clinical scientists, and among adult and pediatric rheumatologists, create an atmosphere of respect for all aspects of our discipline. This training grant supports six highly qualified trainees through two or three years of rigorous scientific training, with the objective that they will devote their subsequent careers to the study of the rheumatic and immunologic diseases.
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