San Diego is the most temperate large city in the United States — 70-degree days almost year-round, an open Pacific coastline, and a pace of life that makes two demanding years feel genuinely good. You train at a Tier-1 academic health system and go home to the best weather in the country.
Fellowship is two years. You choose a program — and get a city.
UCSD Health is a San Diego–wide system: three acute care hospitals and forty outpatient clinic sites spread across the county. Jacobs Medical Center sits in La Jolla on the Torrey Pines mesa — minutes from the Pacific, across the road from the Salk Institute. Hillcrest Medical Center anchors the urban Hillcrest neighborhood. East Campus Medical Center serves La Mesa and the East County. Fellows train primarily at the Jacobs (La Jolla) and Hillcrest campuses, plus selected ambulatory sites.
The system's footprint is growing. Through Palomar UC San Diego Health — a joint-powers partnership taking effect July 2026 — UCSD joins with Palomar Medical Center's Escondido and Poway hospitals in North County, and El Centro Regional Medical Center extends UCSD Health east into the Imperial Valley. Together they widen the range of settings, systems, and patient populations fellows can learn from.
This is the unusual concentration of San Diego: a Tier-1 academic medical system, a research informatics department, an active health-AI research center, and ~1,300 life-sciences companies. And while you're training inside that, the city around it is the most consistently liveable in the country — sun, ocean, and an outdoors culture that makes the hard years lighter.
We don't have to make a case for the rigor of the program — the program does that. We do have to remind applicants that you'll live somewhere for those two years, and few places give back as much as this one.
Torrey Pines and Black's Beach sit just below campus, if you're the type to start the day outside.
Tijuana sits just south of the city. Anza-Borrego desert is east, the Laguna Mountains northeast.
North Park is the food and drinks neighborhood. Petco Park sits downtown for Padres games.
San Diego is meaningfully cheaper than the Bay Area or LA, but not cheap. UC San Diego salaries land you comfortably, especially with roommates or partner income.
UCSD Health is a county-wide system. Its three acute care hospitals stretch from the Torrey Pines mesa on the north coast to the East County, with forty outpatient clinics across the region — the Pacific on one side, the Mexican border twenty-odd miles to the south.
A few honest notes on neighborhoods. Fellows spread out across the coast and the urban core depending on what they want their off-hours to feel like — beach mornings, walkable dinners, or a bit of both. Here's how the popular ones break down.
Neighborhood photos via Wikimedia Commons: La Jolla Cove, Pacific Beach, North Park, Hillcrest, Petco Park, and Sunset Cliffs, used under their respective Wikimedia Commons licenses.
San Diego is unusual among American cities for the variety of outdoor environments within a short drive. You can decide on any given Saturday between ocean, desert, mountains, or chaparral hike — all within two hours.
For fellows: weekend trips don't require taking time off. They require a Saturday morning and a car.
Black's is below the hospital. Cove is the kayaking and snorkeling spot. Both are a short drive from work.
Coastal sandstone bluffs and a network of trails, just north of UCSD.
East of the city. Pine forests, snow in winter, ~6,000 ft elevation. Backpacking and overnighting.
East of the mountains. Wildflowers in spring, dark skies for stargazing, slot canyons, badlands.
From beginner-friendly (Pacific Beach) to consequential (Black's). Lessons available citywide.
Iconic coastal cycling. Pro teams train here. Climbing routes through La Jolla.
Local sport climbing in Mission Gorge. Joshua Tree is a weekend trip northeast.
San Diego food culture is built on three things: Mexican food, seafood, and the third-wave coffee / craft brewery boom of the 2010s.
Tijuana is 25 minutes south. The border-region food culture flows in both directions. Carne asada burritos and fish tacos from a hole-in-the-wall taquería are everyday staples here, not a tourist activity.
San Diego is also one of the densest craft-brewery cities in the country (Stone, Ballast Point, and AleSmith all started here). North Park and East Village are the walkable bar / restaurant neighborhoods.
California is expensive; we won't pretend otherwise. The overall cost of living runs roughly 47% above the U.S. average, driven almost entirely by housing — but within California it sits below the Bay Area and roughly on par with coastal LA.
Rents have actually cooled slightly over the past year as new supply came online, and healthcare costs here track right at the national average. A roommate or partner income and a less-central neighborhood all make the numbers work — many fellows rent near the coast and split rent.
The figures at right are current, sourced, and dated. They will drift; treat them as a snapshot and check the linked sources before making decisions.
Some of the cost is offset before your paycheck arrives. Fellows are UCSD Health house staff under the SDHSA–CIR/SEIU agreement, so the benefits are contractual.
The salary scale itself was set to account for San Diego housing costs — the old separate housing stipend was folded into base pay rather than paid on top of it. Meals, licensure, uniforms, and rides home when you're too tired to drive are covered on top of that.
Two years go faster than you think. Pick a city you'll be sorry to leave.