Message from the Chief

Welcome to the University of California, San Francisco - East Bay Program

In 1990, the East Bay Program was formed from a merging of three surgical residencies: Alameda County Medical Center, Naval Hospital in Oakland, and Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland. Claude H. Organ, Jr., M.D. presided over the early maturation of our program and masterfully supervised the transition in 2001 from sponsorship by the University of California, Davis to the geographically more accessible University of California, San Francisco. The program is currently led by alumna of the residency, Dr. Emily Miraflor who trained under Alden H. Harken and is committed to surgical education and innovations to improve the residents’ training experience. 

Residency Program

The Program Director is Emily Miraflor, M.D., with supportive Associate Program Directors in April Mendoza, M.D., Barnard Palmer, M.D., Leslie Wong, M.D., and Lisa Yang, M.D. We take pride in creating hands-on experiences that allow for early operative exposure in a supportive environment that prioritizes resident education. We emphasize a well-rounded, clinical experience that allows residents to actively participate in medical and surgical decision-making. With over 30 year as the East Bay Surgical residency program, we have honed an educational model that launches young surgeons to the careers of their choice.

The two biggest jumps in any surgeon’s life are from 4th year of medical school to internship and from chief residency into real world practice. At UCSF-East Bay, our aim is to put each resident in the best possible position to master both of these transitions

Our Residents 

Our program is composed of a diverse group of over 50 surgical residents including preliminary interns. We graduate seven chief residents annually. We envision ourselves as training surgeons for both academic/fellowships and/or private practice careers. Similarly, we offer rotations at a large safety net hospital, a comprehensive managed care Kaiser Hospital system, the Benioff Oakland Children's Hospital, a Veterans Medical Center, and the Mount Zion and Parnassus Campuses of UCSF Medical Center. Rather than hearing about the joys associated with surgical practice in various venues, our surgical residents are immersed in rotations representing each of the surgical environments that they are likely to select for their practice of choice.

Resident Research 

We acknowledge that surgical research is not for everyone. Here at UCSF-East Bay, we have the unique capability of offering two years of dedicated surgical research experience, if the resident is interested in such a course of training. Approximately two-thirds of our residents are awarded two years of coveted research time, and research residents in our program have the unique opportunity to perform research at other institutions should they find external research positions that better fit their career goals.

A Wealth of Surgical Experience 

The UCSF-East Bay program does not have surgical fellows. As such, our chief residents are doing the most complex cases, one-on-one with our surgical faculty. This arrangement is something we are quite proud of and feel it is a critical advantage in training top surgical residents. The UCSF-East Bay General Surgery Residency Program is dedicated to providing the best surgical training anywhere. Please do not hesitate to contact us.