Sylvie Sturm

The following has been endorsed by the student boards of the following organizations at UCSF: Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine, Pride in Medicine, Human Rights Collaborative, and South Asian Medical Student Association.

The 2024 Synapse Storytelling Contest submissions surpassed all expectations — from gorgeous landscape photography to heartrending personal essays, from campy gore to coming of age stories, this year’s offerings are outstanding. Our judges had the grueling task of choosing only three winning entries in each of our four categories. Visit our newsletter and website to read and view these 12 pieces of exceptional writing and photography in the coming weeks. And fear not, we will also bring you as many poems, essays, stories and photos as possible throughout the 2024-2025 academic year.

First place winner in the Synapse Storytelling Contest for Fiction. Comments from category judge: An excellent piece of dystopian-realism, set in a familiar yet barely recognizable bleak landscape of San Francisco. I was plunged straight into the story by Collard’s precise and exhilarating storytelling. I also love how Collard manages to teeter right on the edge of the “uncanny valley”, blurring the line between our uncomfortable reality and probable future. I can’t wait to learn how the story unfolds!

At the age of thirteen, my genetic disorder caused my growth to accelerate, leading to an unusually tall stature. My pediatrician predicted a height of at least 6' 4"after puberty, whereas the average height for a female of Indian heritage is about five feet. I was used to the whispers and the stares that trailed me during family and social gatherings. This significantly affected my mental health, and I did not want to grow any taller.

See our November 2024 SF Voter Guide for a nonpartisan analysis of measures on the San Francisco ballot, for the election occurring Nov. 5, 2024. The following measure is on that ballot. Proposition O would strengthen access to abortion and reproductive care in San Francisco and protect the privacy of patients and health care providers. Support States across […]

San Francisco officials appear to have abandoned efforts to open facilities where people can consume drugs under supervision — even as more cities adopt the model to prevent deadly overdoses.Recent studies show that overdose prevention centers save lives, keep people from consuming drugs in public and do not lead to increased crime.

Demonstrations against Planned Parenthood’s San Franciso facility have escalated and at times been threatening, sources say.Supervisor Catherine Stefani said she would propose new regulations Tuesday to increase safety at reproductive care clinics, including by extending the buffer zone between the properties and protesters’ amplified sound.

Land's End

This article is adapted from an episode of our podcast, “Civic.” Click the audio player below to hear the full story. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, San Francisco’s Latinx residents experienced higher rates of infection and deaths, and greater losses of income and homes than did other ethnic groups. “We lost our jobs. […]

Este artículo está adaptado de un episodio de nuestro pódcast, “ Civic.” Haz clic en el reproductor de audio a continuación para escuchar la historia completa.