Dear Colleagues:

Yesterday, Sunday, February 1, was a very special moment in UCSF’s history. It also was an emotional one, as hundreds of physicians, nurses and other staff helped move 131 patients - many of them extremely ill – by ambulances from our Parnassus and Mount Zion campuses to their new rooms at the new UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, leaving behind units and spaces where countless stories of lives saved and lives changed were forged over the past several decades.

The emotion was matched by the tremendous planning and logistical effort to move the patients, the first one leaving Parnassus at 7:04 a.m. and the last arriving at Mission Bay at 3:33 p.m. There was great excitement at the new hospitals on the part of the patients and families as well as faculty trainees and staff. Our first baby was born there at 12:11 p.m., a health little boy who entered the world at a little more than seven pounds.

Comprising UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, UCSF Betty Irene Moore Women’s Hospital, UCSF Bakar Cancer Hospital, and the new outpatient UCSF Ron Conway Family Gateway Medical Building, UCSF Medical Center represents more than ten years of planning and construction. The three hospitals are the first in decades to open in San Francisco.

The vision and construction of the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay were driven by the dedication of hundreds of our faculty and staff, as well as more than two hundred architects, engineers and contractors. It also involved the invaluable advice of our community advisors and patient advisory members, who not only shared their stories of the health care received at UCSF, but recommended ways to make that experience...