In addition to MSTP Community Building events, vertical mentoring groups, retreats, and BBQs, the MSTP features several student-run groups: the MSTP Black Student Group, CUPS, and the MSTP Women Physician Scientist Group.
MSTP Annual Retreat
This two-day event is held in late April or early May for all MSTP trainees and MSTP council members. The first day of the retreat includes scientific talks from graduating MSTP students, small group discussion sessions, a keynote MSTP Alumni or Guest Address, and Graduation Ceremony followed by celebration. The second day is informal to allow for opportunities for small groups to spend relaxed time with faculty and classmates hiking, kayaking, golfing, etc.
Student Council
Student Council responsibilities include but are not limited to, soliciting questions, concerns, ideas, etc., from their classmates and presenting that information during the MSTP Student Council Meeting with MSTP Leadership Quarterly.
The Student Council is designed to supplement the lines of communication that already exist and are in no way intended to be a substitute. Direct communication between any student or students and any other member of the MSTP Community is, as always, strongly encouraged.
MSTP Community Building
We hold several community-building events per year organized by each MSTP class for the purpose of getting to know their classmates and the MSTP Faculty Council and having a good time. Some past events include: bowling, holiday cookie decorating, BBQs, hiking in Marin, and a bonfire at Ocean Beach.
MSTP Black Student Group
The MSTP Black Student Group is centered around fostering a sense of community that has emerged from having quarterly social gatherings across cohorts, connecting with Black faculty and administrators on topics of personal identity, and navigating institutional landscapes keeping in mind the challenges unique to those identities in our journeys towards physician-scientist careers. What has emerged is a space of emotional safety and connection, a sense of well-being, of being seen and supported, and the ability to explore various Bay Area cuisines.
MSTP Community of Underrepresented Physician Scientists (CUPS)
Formed in the Spring of 2015, CUPS is a student committee devoted to supporting and promoting diversity within the MSTP at UCSF. They have two overarching goals they are striving to achieve:
- Developing an even more diverse MSTP student body through outreach and recruitment efforts, including attending conferences such as the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS).
- Building and fostering a stronger community vertically within the existing student population.
CUPS hopes to build community across all levels of physician-scientist training at UCSF, as well as facilitate opportunities to learn from peers who have faced the same challenges. They pursue this initiative through topic-based dinners, workshops, and faculty discussions.
MSTP Women's Group & UCSF Women Physician-Scientists Supergroup (WPSS)
Once a month, the MSTP Women’s Group organizes lunch talks and mini-workshops for students to get to know the female faculty at UCSF. The MSTP Women’s Lunch alternates between structured talks given by female faculty and informal sessions with students to discuss topics such as: clinical vs. basic research, independent development plans, academia vs. industry vs. national labs, managing PIs, and more. See the Events page for information on upcoming MSTP Women's lunches.
The UCSF Women Physician-Scientist Supergroup (WPSS) is a professional network of physician-scientists across fourteen departments at UCSF for advocacy, mentorship, and networking across the post-graduate physician-scientist career pathway.