By Nina Bai and Nicholas Roznovsky | Based on an article originally published on UCSF News
UCSF's psychiatry program has been included in the top five nationally in each of the three years that U.S. News has included rankings for the specialty.
UC San Francisco's psychiatry program has been ranked second in the nation in U.S. News & World Report's annual survey of the best graduate and professional schools. Moving up from fifth place last year, UCSF is also the top public university for graduate and professional psychiatry programs in the nation.
U.S. News' 2021 rankings for medical specialty areas are based on ratings made by medical school deans and senior faculty at peer institutions who are asked to identify up to 15 schools offering the best programs in each specialty. This is only the third consecutive year that U.S. News has included psychiatry as a specialty ranking for medical schools, and UCSF has been included in the top five schools in each of those years.
As a whole, UCSF’s School of Medicine placed in the top six nationally for the 11th consecutive year. In the 2021 medical school rankings, the school’s research program placed sixth and its primary care education program placed second.
For the second year in a row, UCSF was also the only medical school ranked in the top five in all of the specialty areas covered in the survey: anesthesiology, family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry, radiology, and surgery.
“This is a significant recognition of the work we have done to create an exceptional environment for discovery, patient care and learning,” said Talmadge E. King Jr., MD, dean of the School of Medicine. “Now, more than ever, the UCSF School of Medicine takes pride in its ability to prepare a generation of physicians and scientists to treat the most vulnerable populations, and strive to solve the Bay Area, state and nation’s most urgent health problems.”
The UCSF School of Nursing's program in psychiatric/mental health across the lifespan was also ranked sixth nationally in its category this year.
UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS, noted the schools’ history of consistent excellence and the fundamental role each school plays in advancing UCSF’s mission. “Our schools provide the training ground for some of the world’s most talented and diverse students, and seed the next generation for advancing health in our local community, the broader nation and the globe. I am immensely proud of our faculty and administrators who guide these schools and the students we are honored to train.”
The U.S. News medical and nursing school rankings are based on data provided by schools, as well as surveys of deans and faculty at peer institutions. Other factors include the amount of funding that faculty receive from the National Institutes of Health, how selective the school is in admitting students, and the ratio of full-time faculty to students.
The rankings are published in the magazine’s 2021 issue of “Best Graduate Schools.”
About UCSF Psychiatry
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry, UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a mission focused on research (basic, translational, clinical), teaching, patient care, and public service.
UCSF Psychiatry conducts its clinical, educational and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including UCSF campuses at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay and Laurel Heights, UCSF Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, the San Francisco VA Health Care System, and UCSF Fresno.
About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.
The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Neurology, Psychiatry, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
About UCSF
UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise.
It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises three top-ranked hospitals – UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland – as well as Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians, and the UCSF Faculty Practice. UCSF Health has affiliations with hospitals and health organizations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF faculty also provide all physician care at the public Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, and the San Francisco VA Medical Center. The UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program is a major branch of the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine.
