UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public

Course Director
Ellen Hughes, MD, PhD, UCSF clinical professor of medicine and director of education at UCSF’s Osher Center for Integrative Medicine

What really works among alternative therapies? How do scientists separate the hype from the hits? This course provides an introduction to several major alternative health systems led by experts in the field of integrative medicine.

Oct. 8: “Integrative Medicine: An Overview,” Ellen Hughes, MD, PhD, an introduction to herbal medicine and homeopathy.

Oct. 15: “Traditional Chinese Medicine: Acupuncture, Meridians, & Chi” Beverly Burns, MS, LAc, a Chinese medicine practitioner specializing in women’s health and cancer. Burns maintains a private practice in San Francisco, works as an acupuncturist at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and serves as part of a multidisciplinary team participating in research for women with breast cancer at UCSF Cancer Center.

Oct. 22: “Mind-body Medicine: Reducing Stress, Enhancing Your Life” Kevin Barrows, MD, UCSF assistant clinical professor in the department of family and community medicine and director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine.

Oct. 29: “Manual Medicine: A ‘Hands-on’ Approach to Healing” Harley Goldberg, DO, director of complementary and alternative medicine for Kaiser Permanente Northern California Medical Care Program and chief of complementary medicine at Santa Teresa Medical Center in San Jose

Nov. 5: “Understanding Ayurveda: Ancient Medicine for Contemporary Living” Reenita Malhotra, Ayur Virashad, an Ayurvedic clinician, entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Ayoma LifeSpa

Nov. 12: “Energy Medicine: An Overview” Judith Sweet, RN, MS, FNP, UCSF assistant clinical professor in the division of general internal medicine
“Integrative Models of Care” Bradly Jacobs, MD, MPH, UCSF assistant clinical professor of medicine and medical director at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine

Course Director
Carol Fox, Assistant Vice Chancellor, Public Affairs

Course Host and Interviewer

Michael Krasny, PhD, host and senior editor of KQED’s award-winning Forum, a news and public affairs program that concentrates on the arts, culture, health, business and technology. Krasny will interview UCSF authors about their latest books – from scientists’ attempts to fine tune the human mind with a new generation of drugs to a piano tuner’s fictional journey into the jungles of Southeast Asia.

Oct. 8: “Better Than Prozac: Creating the Next Generation of Psychiatric Drugs” Samuel Barondes, MD, Robertson professor of psychiatry and director of the UCSF Center for Neurobiology and Psychiatry, will describe the origins, benefits and limitations of widely used psychiatric drugs such as Prozac. He will discuss how the discovery of the genetic variations that predispose certain people to severe mental disorders will change the way that psychiatric drugs are made and prescribed, and will guide the development of better treatments.

Oct. 15: “The Piano Tuner” Daniel Mason, UCSF medical student. A best-selling debut novel, “The Piano Tuner” tells the story of Edgar Drake, who travels to a civil war-torn Burma in 1886 on a mysterious mission to repair a rare grand piano.

Oct. 22: “The Pathway: Follow the Road to Health and Happiness” Laurel Mellin, MA, RD, UCSF associate clinical professor of family and community medicine and pediatrics. Given the stresses of life, most of us find ourselves going to excess in one or more ways. Mellin’s books discuss how to find the way out of our tendency toward excess and toward health and happiness by mastering two skills – self-nurturing and effective limits.

Oct. 29: “My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging” Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, UCSF clinical professor of family and community medicine, is also the author of “Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal.” Sharing stories is the oldest way that we share our wisdom. Drawing on her best-selling books of true stories, Remen will discuss how we may find meaning in the second half of life and the role of altruism, generosity and service in establishing a sense of worth and personal power.

Nov. 5: “Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life” Paul Ekman, PhD, UCSF professor of psychiatry. CDs that improve sensitivity to emotional communication will be demonstrated.

Nov. 12: “Triplet Code” Frances M. Brodsky, DPhil, UCSF professor of biopharmaceutical sciences, pharmaceutical chemistry and microbiology & immunology. Brodsky’s mysteries, written under the pen name B.B. Jordan, are meant to describe the workings of academic science, as well as to entertain. They illustrate that the process of scientific enquiry is not dissimilar to criminal investigation.

Course Director
Lorie Rice, Associate Dean, External Affairs, School of Pharmacy

From effective pain management to the emerging field of pharmacogenetics – the study of how variations in genes affect each person’s response to drugs – this course examines the latest thinking about the drugs that directly affect our lives.

Oct. 8: “What Everyone Needs to Know About Managing Pain Effectively” Robert Miller, PharmD, a graduate of the UCSF School of Pharmacy and pain management practitioner in private practice in South San Francisco

Oct. 15: “Inappropriate Antibiotic Use and the Risk of Bacterial Infection” B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, UCSF professor and vice chair of clinical pharmacy

Oct. 22: “Deciding on Hormonal Options for Menopause” Cathi Dennehy, PharmD, UCSF assistant professor of clinical pharmacy

Oct. 29: “Current Issues in Tobacco Cessation” Lisa Kroon, PharmD, UCSF associate clinical professor of clinical pharmacy, and Karen Hudmon, DrPH, MS, RPh, UCSF assistant clinical professor of clinical pharmacy

Nov. 5: “Genes and Drugs: How Knowledge About Your Genes Can Improve Your Use of Drugs” Kathryn Phillips, PhD, UCSF associate clinical professor of clinical pharmacy, and Bernard Shen, MD, UCSF assistant clinical professor of clinical pharmacy

Nov. 12: “Consumers and the Dietary Supplement Marketplace” Candy Tsourounis, PharmD, UCSF associate clinical professor of clinical pharmacy

Wednesdays, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m., Oct. 8 – Nov. 12, UCSF Parnassus campus, 513 Parnassus Ave., San Francisco

Course Director Bonnie Rosenberg, MD, an internist in private practice in Mountain View and a member of the clinical faculty at UCSF, has taught literature and medicine courses in the UCSF School of Medicine to medical students and residents.

Stories of illness and healing hold a universal and longstanding appeal to writers, readers, doctors and patients. The pairing of literature and medicine creates a powerful tool to help the reader better understand the complexities of the doctor-patient relationship.

“Medicine and the Short Story” will sample the wealth of literature that provides humanistic connections to current and classical issues in medicine, with a particular focus on the short story.

An opportunity for creative writing will supplement assigned readings and allow for a more personal exploration of the unique relationship between doctors and patients.