Meg McNamara, MD
Professor
Pediatrics
School of Medicine

Dr. Margaret (Meg) McNamara is HS Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and a Fellow of the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement who works as a general pediatrician in the Children’s Health Center at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

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Dr. McNamara previously served as Chief of Pediatrics at UCSF/Mount Zion and led several projects related to violence prevention and childhood exposure to domestic violence prior to shifting her focus to medical education. She introduced health coaching and entrustable professional activities into early medical education when she was Co-Director of UCSF’s Foundations of Patient Care. Dr. McNamara played a key role in curriculum development for the UCSF Bridges Clinical Microsystem Clerkship and was the inaugural ZSFG Site Director as well as Director of Preceptorships. Following several years as the residency's Associate Program Director of Mentorship and Professional Development and as a longstanding mentor for the Pediatric Leaders Advancing Health Equity (PLUS) program, she was Program Director of the UCSF Pediatric Residency until 2024. Dr. McNamara is committed to training a diverse cadre of pediatricians to advance clinical care of children, scientific research to benefit children’s health, and child health equity.

Awards

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• Fellow, UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, 2025
• Graduate Medical Education Excellence and Innovation Award, UCSF, 2024
• Elected to Academy of Medical Educators, 2012
• Excellence in Teaching Award, Academy of Medical Educators, UCSF, 2011
• Maya Award, UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women's Health, 2004

Education & Training

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• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion Training University of California 2017
• UCSF/Coro Leadership Collaborative 2012
• Residency Pediatrics University of California, San Francisco 1993
• M.D. School of Medicine University of Connecticut 1990

Interests

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• medical education
• medical care of the underserved
• child health equity
• violence prevention
• health coaching
• entrustable professional activities (EPAs)
• childhood exposure to domestic violence
• mentorship

Videos

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• Health Coaching (youtube.com)

Publications (5)

Top publication keywords:
Program EvaluationEducation, Medical, GraduateFaculty, MedicalInternship and ResidencyCompetency-Based EducationChildEducational MeasurementMedicineEducation, MedicalClinical ClerkshipNarrationStudents, MedicalSan FranciscoClinical CompetenceBias

• Developing Evidence for Equitable Assessment Characteristics Based on Clinical Learner Preferences Using Discrete Choice Experiments.
  Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges 2023 Perez S, Schwartz A, Hauer KE, Karani R, Hirshfield LE, McNamara M, Henry D, Lupton KL, Woods M, Teherani A
• Designing successful virtual residency interviews: a survey-based needs assessment of applicants across medical specialties.
  Global surgical education : journal of the Association for Surgical Education 2022 Sequeira N, Park KM, O'Sullivan P, Fee C, Foster-Barber A, McNamara M, Shinkai K, Vener M, Kim H, Cornett P, Alseidi A
• Improving Diversity in Pediatric Residency Selection: Using an Equity Framework to Implement Holistic Review.
  Journal of graduate medical education 2021 Marbin J, Rosenbluth G, Brim R, Cruz E, Martinez A, McNamara M
• Training medical students in health coaching skills
  AMEE MedEdPublish 2019 McNamara M, Bodenheimer T.
• Developing Entrustable Professional Activities for Entry Into Clerkship.
  Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges 2016 Chen HC, McNamara M, Teherani A, Cate OT, O'Sullivan P