Meet The Health Careers Team

About the Health Careers Team

Supporting students' career readiness starts with meaningful partnerships. 

The Career and Professional Development (CPD) office, housed within the Graduate Division, supports all UCSF students and postdoctoral scholars through two specialized career development teams:

  • The Career Development Team for Researchers supports PhD students, postdoctoral scholars, and master's students pursuing research and data science careers. Learn about the Career Development Team for Researchers
  • The Health Careers Team supports students in the Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy; the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science; Global Health master's programs; and other clinically focused and dual-degree programs.

While each team serves specific academic programs, we also partner based on students' career goals. For example, health professions students pursuing academic or research careers may be better served by the Career Development Team for Researchers. See who each team serves.

Our Health Careers Team consists of career counselors with specialized expertise in health professions career development. Rather than approaching each advising appointment or educational program independently, we use the Health Professional Student Career Readiness Framework (HPS CRF) to create a shared, evidence-based approach across advising, educational programming, faculty partnerships, and student self-assessment.

Today's health professionals need more than clinical expertise to succeed. We help students build the self-awareness, professional communication, and career readiness competencies they need to navigate training, pursue meaningful professional opportunities, and thrive throughout their careers.

Career Readiness Reach & Impact

Our impact extends beyond the number of students we serve. We measure how effectively career readiness is integrated across programs, curricula, and partnerships to ensure students receive developmentally appropriate support throughout their education.

2025-26 Highlights

65% of health professional students reached through programming and counseling. 2,991 program attendance across 55 programs delivered. 519 1:1 counseling appointments

Why Partnership Matters

View from back of auditorium style classroom, showing students listening to a panel and viewing a slide that says "How can CPD help?"

The strongest predictor of career readiness reach is sustained faculty partnership.

  • Embedding career readiness into the curriculum expands student access. In our most established curricular partnership, career readiness is integrated throughout every year of the curriculum, reaching 99% of students.
  • A multimodal approach strengthens learning and expands career readiness reach. Students benefit most when career readiness is reinforced through multiple touch points including curriculum, career counseling, online resources, student organizations, workshops, and school-wide programming. These complementary experiences reinforce one another while reaching students through different pathways.
  • Partnership drives continuous improvement. We track career readiness reach, delivery channels, HPS CRF stage coverage, and cohort coverage across our educational programming. These data help us refine programming while supporting faculty and program leaders in curriculum planning and identifying opportunities to strengthen career readiness throughout the learner experience.

How We Support Students 

 

 

Career readiness develops over time. Students arrive with clinical goals and spend years building the self-awareness, professional communication, and career readiness competencies that prepare them for successful careers. Through a multimodal approach, we support that development through four complementary approaches. 

 

 

1:1 Career Counseling

Students meet 1:1 with a career counselor at any stage of training, from orientation through residency and fellowship applications, licensure decisions, and first job negotiations.

Career Readiness Programming

We design and deliver evidence-based educational programs organized around the four stages of the Health Professional Student Career Readiness Framework, spanning career self-assessment and planning, professional communication, professional branding, and career launch. Programs are offered as class sessions, workshops, and school-wide events.

Career Readiness Self-Assessment & Annual Career Check-up

Students have access to an optional Career Readiness Self-Assessment, a 48-item tool aligned with the HPS Career Readiness Framework. By rating their confidence across stage-specific career readiness competencies, students can monitor their development over time and identify areas for continued growth.

The self-assessment serves as the foundation for the Annual Career Check-up, a structured career counseling conversation modeled after an annual wellness visit. Together, the self-assessment and Check-up help students reflect on their progress, identify developmental priorities, and set career readiness goals for the year ahead.

Online Career Resources

Students have 24/7 access to evidence-based online resources organized around the four stages of the HPS Career Readiness Framework. Covering career planning, professional communication and relationship building, professional brand and community building, and career launch, these resources reinforce learning beyond counseling and educational programs while supporting students wherever they are in their career development.

Learn more about how we support students

How We Partner with Faculty & Staff

Students bring career questions to the people they trust, and often that starts with their faculty and program advisors. We partner with faculty, program leaders, and campus staff to ensure students receive consistent, developmentally appropriate career guidance throughout their training.

Partnership opportunities span our three service areas.

Career Counseling
  • Refer a student. Connect students with individualized career counseling at any stage of training.
Career Readiness Programming
  1. Promote a program. Share upcoming programs through your courses, newsletters, or listservs.
  2. Serve as a mock interviewer or panelist. Share your expertise during mock interviews, career panels, or networking events.
  3. Partner on a career readiness class. We design and deliver customized educational programs aligned with your curriculum and program competencies.
Curriculum Mapping & Consultation

Map your curriculum with us. 

  • Together, we map your curriculum to program competencies, professional standards, and the Health Professional Student Career Readiness Framework to identify opportunities for longitudinal career readiness development.
  • We also consult on existing career development curriculum to align with evidence based best practices
Resource Development
  • Review our resources. Help ensure our online materials reflect current best practices within your profession.
    • Each partnership has its own process, planning timeline, and lead time.


Learn more about how to partner with the Health Careers Team

The Framework That Guides Our Work

Our work is guided by the Health Professional Student Career Readiness Framework (HPS CRF), developed by our team to provide students, advisors, faculty, and career educators with a shared developmental model that complements existing health professions competencies.

The framework organizes career readiness into four developmental stages: Prepare, Integrate, Collaborate, and Apply - each anchored by clearly defined competencies that move from self-awareness toward professional practice. Grounded in Social Cognitive Career Theory, professional identity formation, and provisional selves research, it positions career readiness as a developmental process rather than a collection of isolated job search activities.

Learn More about the Health Professional Student Career Readiness Framework (HPS CRF)

  Meet the Team 

Anna Reeves

Anna Reeves, MS, APCC
Assistant Director, Health Careers

More about Anna >>>
  • Anna leads the Health Careers team, where she manages team operations, trains and supervises Health Careers staff and a graduate Career Counseling Intern, and provides career counseling while creating tailored programs and resources that guide students through complex workplace navigation concerns and career decision-making.
  • She has supported health professional students at UCSF since 2015.  Previously, she counseled pre-health students while working in UC Berkeley's Career Center.
Sarah Tanase

Sarah Tanase, MA
Program Director, Health Careers

More about Sarah >>>
  • Sarah designs and facilitates career and professional development programs, creates resources, and counsels students. She also co-supervises the Health Team's Career Outreach Peers.
  • Sarah previously worked for Stanford Career Education, similarly developing a career development program curriculum and providing individual counseling to their students and alumni.
Carla Vaccarezza Bass

Carla Vaccarezza Bass, MA
Health Careers Counselor

More about Carla >>>
  • Carla provides counseling to health career professionals at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
  • Prior to UCSF, Carla was the Associate Director at Kellogg School of Management. She coached Evening & Weekend MBA and Executive MBA students, managed an innovative career education portfolio, and led strategic initiatives. Carla also coached biomedical students, researchers, and trainees at Stanford School of Medicine. Her counseling experience spans time at UC Berkeley Goldman School and Stanford Career Education where she served as a strategic partner to graduate and undergraduate students.
Kathleen Cassidy

Kathleen Cassidy, MS, CPCC, BCC
Health Careers Counselor

More about Kathleen >>>
  • Kathleen provides career coaching to health professional students and trainees through the UCSF Office of Career and Professional Development.
  • Kathleen has more than 25 years of experience in higher education, counseling, coaching, and career development. Prior to her current role, she served as Assistant Director and Associate Director at Stanford Career Education, supporting undergraduate, master's, and PhD students in career exploration, internship and job searches, and professional development. 
  • Her previous experience also includes serving as Program Director/Career Counselor for health professional students and alumni at UCSF and as a Career Counselor at UC Berkeley Counseling and Psychological Services, helping students clarify goals, make educational and career decisions, and pursue meaningful opportunities.