UCSF Medical and Nursing Schools Top US News Rankings

UCSF is Only Medical School in Top 5 for Both Research and Primary Care

By Laura Kurtzman

Students celebrate at the 2014 UCSF School of Nursing commencement ceremony. Photo by Elisabeth Fall

Both UC San Francisco’s School of Medicine and its School of Nursing received top rankings nationally in this year’s U.S. News & World Report survey of best graduate schools.

The School of Medicine ranked third in primary care and tied for third in research, while the School of Nursing tied for second overall.

UCSF is the only school of medicine in the nation to rank in the top five in both research and primary care. The school also ranked in the top 10 in six specialty areas: first in AIDS; second in drug/alcohol abuse and women’s health; third in internal medicine; fourth in family medicine; and sixth in pediatrics.

“These rankings show the breadth and strength of UCSF, not only in teaching students how to do world-class biomedical research, but also in teaching them to become great and caring physicians and nurses,” said UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS.

UCSF was in the top 10 in all five of the ranked nursing programs that are offered at UCSF: first in psychiatric/mental health across the lifespan, second in family, fifth in pediatric primary care, sixth in nurse midwifery and ninth in adult/gerontology primary care.

“This is a great endorsement of our faculty and students,” said David Vlahov, RN, PhD, dean of the UCSF School of Nursing. “It’s also a validation of our supportive inter-professional environment, through which we are discovering new and better ways of teaching students and caring for patients.”

The report also includes the 2012 rankings for schools of pharmacy, in which UCSF ranked first for its Doctor of Pharmacy program (PharmD), and the 2014 rankings for PhD programs in the biological sciences, in which UCSF tied for seventh place. U.S. News does not rank graduate schools of dentistry.

The U.S. News rankings are based on expert opinions from 13,700 academics and professionals, as well as data on faculty, research and students from nearly 1,900 graduate programs. Specialty areas are ranked based on reputation data alone.

UCSF is the nation's leading university exclusively focused on health. Now celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding as a medical college, UCSF is dedicated to transforming 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 world-renowned programs in the biological sciences, a preeminent biomedical research enterprise and top-tier hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals.