The Patient Support Corps at UCSF
Jeff Belkora, Professor
UC San Francisco
Applications for Fall 2025 are closed for this project.
*** SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: INFORMATION SESSION AUG 28 ***
UPDATE 8/21/25: I will host a PSC information session on 8/28 at 6 pm on campus, in person. There's a challenge: I can't reserve a classroom (Berkeley rules for the first weeks of term). So I can't tell you the location yet. Also, the space will be constrained by the classroom size. So here's what I propose: if you hope to attend, fill out this Indication of Interest form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSduUw-QW1e7yHbgQI1xOdxUJeHmKynJLVnPkhTPUkJFojnnAQ/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=101651982166366210797
When I arrive on campus on 8/28, around 5:30 pm, I will find an unoccupied classroom and email the first X people on the indication of interest list, sharing the location with them. The location will be somewhere in the Dwinelle, Wheeler, Soc Sci area. If you get the email from me, that means I have room for you (first come, first serve on the list), and you should plan to make your way to the location by 6 pm sharp. If I can't invite everyone who expressed interest, I will possibly either 1) hold a second session right after the first, so watch your emails around 6:30; 2) hold a virtual session in the following days. Please note, you don't have to attend the info session to apply. Mostly I will be repeating and emphasizing key elements of the URAP project description.
*** END OF SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ***
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS
“This apprenticeship has been the highlight of my time at Berkeley. It has given me a chance to help patients in difficult medical situations, and as a pre-health undergraduate, this is important to me.”
“It is a great opportunity to get clinical experience and work with like-minded people who care about creating a change in health care.”
“We have a great deal of autonomy when working with patients, and it is also a rewarding experience because the patients really do appreciate the service that we give them.”
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FROM THE FACULTY DIRECTOR, PROFESSOR JEFF BELKORA (https://profiles.ucsf.edu/jeff.belkora)
Please address me as Professor Belkora during the application process and let me know how you would like to address me. If you are accepted, the Patient Support Corps operates internally on a first name basis.
*** Whether you apply to the Patient Support Corps or not, please connect with me on LinkedIn if you are interested in patient advocacy and patient support. I plan to use LinkedIn for announcements, opportunities, analyses, updates etc. ***
*** INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUR STATEMENT OF INTEREST/APPLICATION ARE AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE. ***
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF PATIENT SUPPORT CORPS (PSC)
Eligibility: This opportunity is open to all URAP-eligible Berkeley students. The Patient Support Corps does not use race, gender, or other protected categories or proxies for protected categories to evaluate or select applicants. Generally, the Patient Support Corps seeks applicants who are interested in exploring a broad range of health careers in addition to medicine, e.g. public health, social work, psychology, nursing, physician assisting, dentistry, population health, etc. I suggest you all read the book "You Don't Have to Be a Doctor," by a former Berkeley professor (Jeff Oxendine). Twenty-first century health care is not going to revolve around physicians. It's going to be about multi-disciplinary teams with less hierarchy and more focus on meeting patient needs with a breadth of interventions. I am not impressed with students who are only focused on becoming an MD, because the reasons for this intense focus are often related to implicit or explicit desires for social status, ego, money, or parental/family approval. Conversely, mission-driven applicants are not focused on any particular professional credential. Instead, they are focused on contributing to health in a variety of ways and are open and flexible about finding the best way to contribute.
Special encouragement for students who haven't figured out their path yet and may be feeling intimidated: The Patient Support Corps welcomes your application if you are curious and looking for opportunities to explore different pathways in health care. I have welcomed and nurtured many students who gained enormous confidence from working on Patient Support Corps teams, overcoming imposter syndrome or other concerns about barriers to pursuing health careers. With the right attitude and approach, and some flexibility, the Patient Support Corps can help you find a good path.
Due to the time-bounded constraints involved in delivering healthcare education and services, students must be able to fulfill application and eventually some program duties on Friday evenings (5 to 6 pm) and Saturdays as well as weekdays. If this conflicts with your religious practices, I encourage you to seek permission to participate at these times from your religious organizations. Most religions that I'm aware of grant exceptions in recognition of the 24/7 nature of health careers. The Patient Support Corps can grant occasional exceptions to accommodate particular holidays, but cannot issue blanket exemptions from PSC duties on Friday evenings and Saturdays, as we generally need students to be flexible and available.
Mentoring from a UCSF Professor: When students are productive long-term contributors to the Patient Support Corps, we develop strong working relationships. This allows me to serve as an advocate for students in their professional and career development. Program alumni have successfully leveraged the Patient Support Corps experience and relationships to advance their educational and career goals. For example, a recent survey found that 91% of recent alumni were enrolled in medical, pharmacy, or nursing school. To this end, I will write recommendation letters, serve as a reference, and assist with networking (e.g. identifying UCSF clinical or basic science research opportunities, finding gap year employment, etc.) Before applying, students should learn more about my leadership of this program (e.g. in the background links provided to all applicants) and decide whether my approach to personal and professional development is appealing or not. If not, don't apply.
Social Learning: A key feature of participating in the Patient Support Corps is that we all learn from each other's experiences. This means students should expect to discuss their experiences in the program, including failures and errors, in group settings with UC Berkeley peers and UCSF employees. We are not concerned with saving face or protecting egos. We are focused on maximizing learning, preventing the recurrence of errors, containing and mitigating problems, and continuous improvement. Students with perfectionist or competitive tendencies who want to look good all the time will have to overcome these barriers. Similarly, when students ask me for my help (e.g. references, networking/introductions, scholarships, summer programs, gap year opportunities), I will advocate for them wholeheartedly. I will also share our stories and opportunities with the entire group so that everyone can benefit. In the Patient Support Corps, a rising tide lifts all boats. Involvement in the Patient Support Corps will include a loss of privacy and students who are excessively shy about discussing their educational and career journeys will also have to overcome these tendencies.
Clinical Experience at UCSF: The Patient Support Corps (PSC) presents a rare opportunity for UC Berkeley undergraduates to deliver direct services to patients as members of UCSF care teams. UCSF is an internationally renowned medical center with equally acclaimed schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry. Students work as officially badged UCSF affiliate employees with access to the electronic health record and other internal systems essential for team-based health care. Students earn academic credit in our unpaid internships, and also gain experience, skills, and access to role models, mentors, and networks - while contributing meaningfully to patient care at UCSF.
Telehealth Internship: Students deliver PSC services remotely. Participating students will need to configure their laptops with UCSF-issued software to access tele-health and related systems. Students will need reliable access to the internet and a quiet and private location in which to perform their duties. Virtually all student participation is online, although some PSC sub-teams meet in person on campus, and I host some optional in person meetings as well a few times per semester. Some in-person interaction is essential for team-building and for me to get to know students better.
Student tasks: PSC students go beyond shadowing or observation – program leaders train all our students to work on a range of tasks, such as case-finding or scheduling or making outbound calls and documenting interactions with patients. For some roles, program leaders will also train students to be health coaches or patient scribes. I will assign you to a role based on program needs. Do not apply to this program thinking you will be able to choose your role. All the roles contribute meaningfully to patient care, and any role allows you to learn about how interprofessional teams deliver care. All the roles expose you to my mentoring and investment in your development.
Time commitment and academic credit: The time commitment is 9-11 hours per week for 3 units of academic credit through the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program. Applicants will need to attend daylong application sessions on Saturdays during the URAP interview window, and these Saturday sessions will continue during their first semester until they have completed an overall orientation to the Patient Support Corps. If accepted, students must register for the Patient Support Corps course (Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies 192). This course is pass/fail and meets every Friday from 5 to 6 pm, with a weekly assignment due by 2 pm each Friday. I also require students to protect at least one regular half-day shift (same day each week) in their schedule. In this way, clinical teams know when they can depend on student intern support. Therefore at least 5 hours a week are dedicated to shift work. One hour is dedicated to our weekly class meetings (Fridays at 5 pm). One hour is devoted to reporting and reflecting on each week's shift. Students must also set aside time (2-4 hours) for additional shift work (e.g. half-shift), additional training activities, or documentation, or for team meetings. This is a course, but it also functions as employment (work) experience and should be represented that way on student resumes/profiles.
Multi-Year and Year-Round: Because of the intensive training provided, and the way in which student interns are embedded in teams with continual patient care responsibilities, I am looking for students who can make a multi-year commitment and work shifts year-round, including during winter, spring, and summer breaks. I will excuse students from their shifts during exams, and they can negotiate vacation time during their longer breaks. Program participation during breaks will occur outside of URAP and will not earn credit. Year-round and multi-year participation is not absolutely required, but in practice this is how the program operates as a high reliability partner to our clinical sites.
Student availability and time management: The more availability and flexibility applicants have in their schedule, the greater the chances of matching one of our open time slots. THIS IS NOT A PROGRAM FOR STUDENTS WHO ARE SPREAD THIN AND OVERCOMMITTED. This is a program for early-stage students who want to focus their patient-facing, clinical, volunteer and service experience on a single co-curricular activity, the Patient Support Corps. I expect students will also want to develop one set of research experiences outside of PSC to complement the PSC's focus on patient service. Then students should protect the rest of their time for coursework, exams, and self care. The PSC does not promote the broken model of pre-professional students spreading themselves thin over many activities in an effort to impress future reviewers with sheer quantity of grandiose-sounding activities. Rather, PSC is a sustained, longitudinal, intensive commitment and will reward your investment accordingly.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION
The Patient Support Corps at UCSF works closely with a UC Berkeley student group, the Patient Advocacy Student Group. This presents additional leadership opportunities for students.
STUDENT INTEREST IN INNOVATION
My work with the Patient Support Corps is innovative (e.g. 2009 award from the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BIJ8r-wbZQ). The Patient Support Corps is blazing new trails in service learning as a high-impact educational practice. Very few organizations train early-stage students to perform in such high responsibility positions. This requires students who have a strong appetite and aptitude for innovation, and high tolerance for ambiguity and variation. I seek students who are adaptable to conditions that evolve. Students are constantly overcoming barriers to their participation (e.g. technology glitches, scheduling issues, difficulty in reaching patients, rapidly changing job responsibilities, etc.) This is not a program for students who expect to plug in to a standardized internship, punch the clock, clock some hours, and go back to their schoolwork on a regular, predictable schedule. This is more for students who crave experiential learning on interprofessional teams, and are patient and realistic about how complex that can be, and how flexible they will need to be.
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LINKS TO ARTICLES FEATURING THE PATIENT SUPPORT CORPS
Here is a video explainer that you may find helpful in understanding the Patient Support Corps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOFtStxaNHY
You can read about PSC's work with the COVID hotline at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.697515/full and https://ls.berkeley.edu/news/uc-berkeley-students-recognized-exceptional-contributions-ucsfs-covid-response.
You can read about PSC's work in patient scribing (question-listing, note-taking, and audio-recording for patients) at http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/15/209
You should also review the PSC home-page (https://healthpolicy.ucsf.edu/patient-support-corps) as well as my academic homepage, including video and other links (https://profiles.ucsf.edu/jeff.belkora)
(Optional) For the story behind the Patient Support Corps, consult my book DEAL! https://www.amazon.com/DEAL-Discovery-Engagement-Leverage-Professionals-ebook/dp/B012UGG0AA
I will provide additional PSC materials for you to review after I have screened your application for general suitability.
Role: ==============================================
SPECIFIC ROLE FOR THE UNDERGRADUATE (TASKS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES)
Specific roles, tasks, and learning outcomes depend on the specific clinical assignment but will include at least one of the following:
Task 1: Engage in clerical or data management work such as online research; data entry; transcription; data quality control; administering surveys by telephone or in person; scheduling patients into upcoming visits; and similar tasks.
Task 2: Call patients with upcoming appointments; assess and document their needs; and refer them to resources that address their needs.
Task 3: Respond to inbound calls during shifts on UCSF hotlines. Assist with triaging patients, addressing questions, and referring or escalating patients to resources.
Task 4: Call patients who have been referred for more intensive coaching. Assure that the patients have reviewed educational materials about their condition; and assist them in writing a list of questions to be sent to their physician in advance of their upcoming consultation.
Task 5: Virtually accompany patients to visits with physicians, via Zoom. Take notes for the patient; and make audio-recordings of the visit. Summarize the notes and give copies of the summary and recording to the patient as a memory aid.
Task 6: Staff other projects that may need student assistance with patient support tasks, such as cancer supportive care (e.g. distress screening), and kidney transplantation.
Task 7: Maintain key standards after training in patient privacy, good clinical practices, legal and risk management requirements, and documentation and data collection and management.
Task 8: Reflect critically on Tasks 1-8 every week in writing and in a course meeting held on Fridays at 5 pm with the program director (Jeff Belkora) or program coordinators. Students will learn the Critical Incident Technique for practice-based learning and improvement. Our program also conducts research on the data collected by students regarding barriers and facilitators relevant to program implementation.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Students will learn skills relevant to the competencies required of healthcare professionals by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education, in the categories of medical knowledge; patient care; interpersonal communication; systems-based practice; practice-based learning; and professionalism. These skills are also relevant for students interested in nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, social work, psychology, public health, and allied health professions. PSC students will also learn the Critical Incident Technique and High Reliability frameworks, widely used in health care.
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SPECIFIC QUALIFICATIONS THE STUDENT SHOULD HAVE
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
a. AVAILABILITY: You must be available each Saturday after submitting your URAP application for mandatory in-person interviews then training at UCSF's Mission Bay campus. For ongoing weekly commitments, including during academic breaks, you must keep at least five hours per week available to staff (online) at least one virtual clinic or hotline morning or afternoon slot on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday (ie weekdays only). Morning slots are 7:30 am to 12:30 pm; afternoon slots are 12 pm to 5 pm. Plan on an addition 3 to 5 hours per week for additional shifts, meetings, record-keeping/documentation, training, and communication. In particular, you must always attend our weekly online all-intern meeting Friday at 5 pm for an hour. Required overall commitment will be 9-11 hours per week. Do not apply if you are overcommitted and cannot protect this level of engagement.
b. TECHNOLOGY: You will need to provide a laptop with a hard drive and internet connection, and consent to installing UCSF security software on your laptop, giving UCSF IT the ability to wipe your laptop remotely if it is stolen or missing. Google Chromebooks do not meet our UCSF encryption standards. Students with Apple devices will need to spend extra time with UCSF's IT department, and may be asked to defer software and hardware upgrades until UCSF can ensure compatibility. Students will also need a USB (wired) headset for best audio fidelity. Wireless (e.g. Bluetooth) headsets may not meet our standards. To assure a reliable connection when using UCSF's Virtual Private network, you may need an ethernet (wired) connection to your internet router, and adapter to connect the ethernet cord to your device. Note: students can apply each year for funds to partially or fully reimburse the purchase of these necessary supplies on the basis of financial need.
c. COMMUNICATION: Aptitude for patient-centered, neutral, non-directive communication, including very clear verbal enunciation, high volume when speaking, and clear spoken and written English. Many of our patients are older, hearing impaired, speak limited English (you may need to speak clearly via an interpreter), or have cognitive difficulties. Our positions require a high degree of verbal communication. We will train you but you must recognize the importance of these performance characteristics and pledge to improve enunciation, volume, and distracting filler words. PSC actively seeks students who fluently speak languages other than English, but English fluency is a fundamental requirement.
d. PROFESSIONALISM. Be ready to leave behind all the informality of college campus interactions. We operate in a highly regulated, formal, and patient-centered environment. You must be obsessive about reading and following instructions, have unbelievable attention to detail, and the humility to quickly admit when you are stuck and escalate to a supervisor. You must be reliable and accountable for staffing your shifts, finding substitutes, or communicating with maximum lead time if you will not be available. You must err on the side of over-communication and respond promptly to emails, phone calls, SMS, and other messages. Our team highly prizes reliable, consistent follow through. As an example, you will need to monitor a UCSF email account that requires dual authentication, and you will be expected to check it several times a day even though you may only receive emails there once a week.
e. MATURITY. Exceptional maturity, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and humanism. We have built a culture of collaboration, service, and peer support. My personal slogan is: Nothing is cooler than kindness. Successful PSC students are oriented towards service and contribution.
f. TYPING/WORD-PROCESSING. Ability to touch-type or enter 40+ words per minute; or willingness to pursue online typing courses to attain this threshold prior to starting with the Patient Support Corps (see https://www.typingtest.com/trainer/). Alternative arrangements possible for students who face barriers to inputting data via keyboards.
DESIRED/PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
g. LANGUAGE ABILITIES: In addition to English fluency, speaking other languages fluently is a desired qualification, as PSC students are eligible to take the ALTA Clinician Cultural & Linguistic Assessment (CCLA) and Qualified Bilingual Staff (QBS) tests. Students who pass these tests can speak to patients about specific issues relevant to patient navigation without requiring the services of a language interpreter.
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SPECIAL NOTES
Because of resource constraints, the Patient Support Corps must operate in a fairly standardized way. However, for humanitarian and humanistic reasons, I also want to make exceptions to our standard operating procedures when warranted. Please don't hesitate to email me if you wish to request an exception to some aspect of the application process or the implementation of our program that represents a burden to your specific situation. My email is jeff.belkora@ucsf.edu. I expect most people can comply with the instructions as provided, but I will pay attention if you want to bring some unique circumstances to my attention.
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INSTRUCTIONS FOR PATIENT SUPPORT CORPS STATEMENT OF INTEREST
This program requires that you address project-specific prompts (below) inside of a project-specific word limit (300 words). [URAP general instructions may state different general prompts or word limits, please follow these project-specific instructions.] Follow the instructions carefully. I will evaluate your application in part on the basis of whether you read and follow protocols accurately, because that is a big part of our program (and of health care in general).
Number your responses as follows:
1. Begin the statement of interest with your name and expected year of graduation.
2. State how you heard about this application, for example which person or organization referred you, or where you found a link to the application.
3. Specify which five-hour shift(s), Monday-Friday, you will keep open for PSC duties if selected in your first semester with the program. Use AM to designate 7:30 am to 12:30 pm; PM to designate 12 pm to 5 pm. (These times can flex a bit, e.g. 8 am to 1 pm is OK for AM, or 12:30 pm to 5:30 pm for PM.) If your course schedule does not allow any five-hour shifts, indicate how you would propose to cover five hours in multiple shifts each week. List your available shift(s) on separate lines, e.g.
- Monday AM
- Thursday PM
4. Provide a brief written example of a time in the past when you demonstrated a key behavior reflecting PSC's required or preferred qualifications. A brief anecdote is what I am looking for here.
5. Please list any languages other than English that you speak fluently.
6. Please write a few sentences conveying your commitment to balance patient/clinical experience (e.g Patient Support Corps), research activity (e.g. in labs), coursework (your GPA is important), and self-care (e.g. sleep, exercise, nutrition). If I accept you to this program, what will you scale back to ensure a quality commitment to PSC? PSC is for students who want to focus their patient service activity on one multi-year commitment, rather than trying a lot of different activities. (Your resume/CV will be fine with just Patient Support Corps on it for patient/clinical experience, along with UCSF references and recommendations.)
7. Please write a sentence confirming that you have or can quickly obtain (ie have in your possession on campus) two of the following three forms of ID: social security card; driver's license (or equivalent state id); passport. This is necessary for some of our placement sites.
8. Please write a sentence confirming that you will be available on Saturdays for interviews and training in person at UCSF, and Fridays at 5 pm for weekly all-intern meetings via Zoom.
9. (Optional) If you face any barriers to fulfilling the required or desired qualifications, and would like to request an exception, please summarize.
Your overall statement of interest, with numbered items 1-9, must not exceed 300 words.
Qualifications: See above
Hours: 9-11 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: This is off campus work, however it is remote work and can be done from any private, quiet location with good internet access.
Related website: https://healthpolicy.ucsf.edu/patient-support-corps
Related website: https://profiles.ucsf.edu/jeff.belkora