FRESNO – Michael W. Peterson, MD, has been appointed associate dean of the UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program, effective April 1, 2016. In his role as associate dean, Dr. Peterson will oversee the continued development of the clinical and academic programs of UCSF Fresno.
He has served as interim associate dean since January 1, 2015. Dr. Peterson has been chief of medicine at UCSF Fresno for the past 14 years, and he serves as vice chair in the Department of Medicine at UCSF. His clinical and research focus is in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.
“I have every confidence that Dr. Peterson will lead UCSF Fresno with vision, vigor and commitment,” said Talmadge E. King, Jr., MD, dean, UCSF School of Medicine and vice chancellor for medical affairs. “He will continue to be a trusted leader within the Department of Medicine and the school and will continue to extend UCSF’s mission in Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley.”
Dr. Peterson was recruited to Fresno in 2002 from the University of Iowa College of Medicine, where he worked for twenty years and held the Dr. William and Sondra Myers Family Professorship. He was recruited to UCSF Fresno as the Valley Medical Foundation Professor of Medicine, UCSF Fresno Chief of Medicine and UCSF Vice Chair of Medicine.
During his tenure in Fresno, Peterson oversaw the growth of the Medicine Residency Program from 45 trainees to its current 68 trainees and the development of seven subspecialty fellowships with 37 current fellows in training.
He also successfully led the fundraising effort to build out the UCSF Fresno Clinical Research Center, which opened in 2013. The UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program was created as a regional campus of UCSF in 1975 with the support of the California Legislature and the Veteran’s Administration to address the severe shortage of physicians in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The program celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2015. Currently, it trains about 250 medical residents and 50 subspecialty fellows, along with more than 250 medical students, who spend time in the valley to work with rural patients and patients in a variety of clinical settings from large hospitals to small clinics. Faculty members at UCSF Fresno provide direct patient care to thousands of San Joaquin Valley community members.
UCSF Fresno also works with a number of partners to prepare a pipeline of underrepresented students for careers in health and medicine and to conduct medical research involving health issues that impact Valley residents.
Dr. Peterson received both his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Minnesota and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Wisconsin. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians and a leading member of the California Thoracic Society, the largest state organization of lung specialists in the United States. He was also a founding member, councilor and president for the Association of Chiefs and Chairs of Medicine. He is a consummate physician and teacher and has won numerous awards in both areas, including being named one of America's Best Doctors every year since 2010.
