By Marie Hubbard, Senior Program Manager and Dr. Sunita Mutha, Director

Photo: Healthforce Center staff volunteering at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank in October 2023, from left: Kyoko Peterson, Sofia Sandoval, Melissa Lucas, Khadijat Alli, Xenia Mendez, Marie Hubbard, Vaishnavi Vaidya, Janet Coffman, Sunita Mutha, Sutep Laohavanich, Beth Mertz, and Liwam Nerayo.

Healthforce Center at UCSF is pleased to welcome five interns this summer! Working with interns is just one way in which Healthforce Center advances health equity by building pipelines of diverse health clinicians, researchers, and leaders. Internships such as these provides an opportunity for people from under-represented communities to learn about and contribute to health care as they explore the next steps in their careers.

By Sunita Mutha, MD, FACP, Director of Healthforce Center

By Sunita Mutha, MD, FACP, Director of Healthforce Center

If 2020 was the year of a collective reckoning on racial injustice across the nation, then 2021 was the year of laser-like focus on how to redouble our efforts to advance equity and become more anti-racist. As Healthforce Center at UCSF will celebrate our 30th anniversary in 2022, we are taking extra time to review where we've been and where we are going.

By Sunita Mutha, MD, FACP, Director of Healthforce Center

I always breathe more deeply when the smells of spring begin to fill the air here in San Francisco. But this spring feels extra special, as I see my patients, colleagues, and loved ones getting their COVID-19 vaccinations, and we begin to exhale a sigh of relief. Day by day, I feel more hopeful in the fight against the virus.

By Sunita Mutha, MD, FACP, Director of Healthforce Center

As we look forward from this recent presidential election, there is a lot to celebrate given the huge success of “get out the vote” efforts. However we might feel about the results of the state and presidential elections, there are important reflections about where we are at this moment in time and how we prepare for what’s ahead of us still. 

By Sunita Mutha, MD, FACP, Director of Healthforce Center

By Sunita Mutha, MD, FACP, Director of Healthforce Center

The challenges facing health care are too big for individuals or individual organizations to handle alone. Solving these problems requires collaboration among payors, plans, foundations, educational institutions, and health care systems in both the safety net and commercial sectors. It requires health care leaders to see themselves as change agents working together toward similar goals.

California faces serious shortages in its health workforce, which makes it difficult for too many people to access the care they need. For example, in the next decade, California will face a shortfall of 4,100 primary care clinicians, will need an additional 600,000 home care workers, and will only have two-thirds of the psychiatrists we need.