The UCSF School of Medicine has partnered with the UCSF Library to provide help-desk services to medical students through the Library's Interactive Learning Centers.

The following services are available from the ILC and ILC-South 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday - Friday (excluding holidays and breaks).

• Consulting services are provided in ILC-South (S165). Medical students can make consulting appointments with help-desk staff. Students must bring their UCSF photo ID to the consultation. You can make and appointment by:
  • Online Consultation Request
  • Voice-mail, 502-5329
  • Walk-in signup in S-166.
  • Other UCSF students will be assisted on a drop-in basis only.
• ILC staff will provide application support for the MS Office Suite, Web browsers and plug-ins, e-mail, and desktop operating systems.
• Assistance will be provided with network connectivity, including troubleshooting and configuring laptops for VPN and wireless network access.
• ILC staff will assist students in referring calls to ITS for matters such as problems with UCSF e-mail accounts and changing UCSF Email or VPN passwords.
• The ILC consulting service will troubleshoot student laptops by checking for proper device configuration and installation. The ILC will not replace or repair hardware, and will not provide any licensed software.

See also this page on protecting your computer from viruses, worms, and other harmful software.

ITS Customer Support provides assistance with your UCSF e-mail account and VPN account.

The ITS Customer Support unit is staffed Monday - Friday, 7:00 am - 6:00 pm and can be reached at (415) 514-4100, option 2, or by e-mail at customersupport@ucsf.edu. They do not have a walk-in facility.

UCSF E-mail

UCSF issues all medical students an e-mail address and students are expected to access the account throughout their enrollment in medical school. Go here for information on setting up email. Also, see the SOM E-mail policy.

Off-campus Network Access

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) account, in combination with access to the Internet via your own Internet Service Provider (ISP), provides secure access to the UCSF internal network. Access to the UCSF internal network gives you access to resources restricted to verified UCSF users. This includes Library resources such as licensed textbooks and full-text journal articles. All medical students have been provided with a VPN Account.

VPN Username and Password

Your VPN Username and Password are the same as your MyAccess username and password. MyAccess account setup instructions are provided by e-mail by ITS.

NOTE: If you have forgotten your MyAccess credentials, please call ITS customer support at (415) 514-4100, option 2.

How to use the VPN@UCSF service

To use the web-based VPN:

1. Just go to https://vpn.ucsf.edu and login using your VPN username and password.
2. You can access a Quick Start Guide  for more instructions.

Medical Student Lounge

The Medical Student Lounge (Medical Sciences S-245) has three computers for medical student use. These are Windows-based computers with a printer that utilizes the Library's Printing Service (LPS).