UCSF Fresno Names Jim Comes as Chief of Emergency Medicine
He Will Serve as Vice-Chair of Emergency Medicine at UCSF
After a nationwide search, UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program appointed Jim Comes, MD, as Chief of Emergency Medicine at UCSF Fresno and Vice-Chair of Emergency Medicine at UC San Francisco. Comes provides visionary leadership for the clinical, educational and research components of emergency medicine at UCSF Fresno.
As Chief of Emergency Medicine, Comes also has been named the Gene W. Kallsen, MD, Endowed Chair in Emergency Medicine at UCSF Fresno. Endowed chairs are associated with the most prestigious educational institutions and are held by distinguished faculty. To establish an endowed chair, monies are raised and invested for the purposes of funding the position in perpetuity. The purpose of this endowed chair is to support the teaching, research and service activities in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UCSF Fresno.
Comes will continue to serve as Chair of the Emergency Department at Community Regional Medical Center, one of the busiest emergency departments in the state and home to the only Level 1 trauma and comprehensive burn center from Sacramento to Los Angeles. He also will continue his academic appointment as UCSF Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at UCSF Fresno.
Comes has dedicated his career to graduate medical education, serving in an educational leadership role for the past 23 years. He was program director for the transitional-year internship and assistant residency director prior to serving as program director of the UCSF Fresno Emergency Medicine Residency Program from 2006 to 2017.
He earned bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and biology from the University of California, Irvine and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed residency training in emergency medicine at UCSF Fresno at the former Valley Medical Center.
Comes has received letters of commendation from Sen. Barbara Boxer, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office and other elected officials for his service to the community. He is the recipient of the Haile Debas Academy of Medical Educators UCSF Excellence in Teaching Award. In addition to being a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, he serves as an examiner for the American Board of Emergency Medicine.
Comes replaces Greg Hendey, MD, as chief of the UCSF Fresno Emergency Medicine Department and as endowed chair.
About UCSF Fresno: UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program, established in 1975, plays a substantial role in providing health care to residents of California’s San Joaquin Valley and training medical professionals in the region. UCSF Fresno is the San Joaquin Valley’s largest physician-training program. Annually, UCSF Fresno currently trains approximately 250 medical residents (medical school graduates who are training under senior faculty physicians prior to practicing on their own) in eight specialties, 10 oral and maxillofacial surgery dental residents, 50 medical fellows (physicians who are completing training beyond residency) in 17 subspecialties, more than 300 medical students (students in the process of earning medical degrees) on a rotating basis and physician assistants in three residency programs. Recent statistics show that 50 percent of the physicians trained by UCSF Fresno stay in the region to provide UCSF care in the Central Valley. Thanks to the expertise of faculty physicians, the majority of complex cases can be treated locally without traveling outside of the region for exceptional care. Faculty and medical residents at UCSF Fresno engage in a broad spectrum of research addressing health issues pertinent to the Valley. Faculty and residents also care for the overwhelming majority of the region’s underserved populations. In addition, UCSF Fresno helps prepare middle, high school and college students for careers in health and medicine through a variety of pipeline programs. Please visit www.fresno.ucsf.edu
About UCSF: UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise. It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises top-ranked hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland – and other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area.