News & Events

  Visit the Parenting in Surgery website   Annie having a great time at the Mentorship event. Becoming a parent is hard work, especially when balancing the new role as a parent with surgical training. We have created a New Parent Mentorship Program in the UCSF Department of Surgery to provide a support network of trainees and faculty. The Mentorship program was successfully launched with a social gathering at Spark Social SF. The event included a kid's play area, an abundance of food, and the opportunity for medical students, trainees, faculty, and their families to meet, mingle, and [...]

The Exceptional Physician Awards recognizes select physicians for exemplary demonstration of UCSF Health's values in their clinical practice and interaction with patients, faculty and staff. The Department of Surgery wants to congratulate Dr. Hillary J. Braun, one of our Chief Residents in General Surgery and future transplant surgeon, for receiving an Exceptional Physician Award for the academic year 2022-23.     Watch the 2023 Exceptional Physician Award Winner Hillary Braun Acceptance Video:

The UCSF Department of Sugery is very pleased to introduce our new General Surgery, Plastic Surgery, and Integrated Vascular Surgery residents! We warmly welcome this extraordinary, diverse group to UCSF Surgery and congratulate each incoming intern for matching into our programs. We are honored to partner with these future surgeons as they begin their training in June, and are thrilled that they will be joining the UCSF Surgery family.

We pleased to announce that Ajay Maker, MD, FACS has been named the Chief of the new Division of Surgical Oncology in the Department of Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. He will lead Surgical Oncology services, including breast, colorectal, endocrine, hepatopancreatobiliary, and melanoma/sarcoma surgery, at UCSF via the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, the VA of San Francisco, and our centers across the greater Bay Area. Dr. Maker comes to UCSF from his hometown of Chicago, where he is a tenured Professor [...]

Native Americans are still here! Not just in the romanticized past, or in a troubled present where stereotypes of Indians abound (alcoholics, living only on reservations, stoic spiritual leaders, casino owners).    California has the largest Native American population in the country – a shocking statistic to most people. Why are land acknowledgments important? They recognize the past and present of Native American culture. They invite all of us to think about the ways in which we benefit from settler-colonialism. They inspire action by reminding us that colonization happened and is [...]

Susan G. Komen®, the world's leading breast cancer organization, recognized two widely respected and innovative breast cancer researchers this week, announcing that Donald McDonnell, Ph.D., and Laura Esserman, M.D., have been selected as this year's recipients of the Brinker Awards – Komen's highest scientific honor. This year's Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction in Clinical Research will be presented to Laura Esserman, M.D., M.B.A., Director, Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center, Alfred A. de Lorimier Endowed Chair in General Surgery, Professor of Surgery and Radiology, University of [...]

Valerie Weaver, Ph.D., Professor of Surgery in the Departments of Surgery, Anatomy, and Bioengineering & Therapeutics Sciences, and Director of the Center for Bioengineering & Tissue Regeneration, is the recipient of a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Outstanding Investigator Award (OIA) (R35), supporting a 7-year $6.7M grant for Dr. Weaver's project entitled, "Tissue mechanics reprograms the tissue to malignancy and metastasis." This NCI Outstanding Investigator Award provides long-term support to experienced investigators with outstanding records of research productivity and [...]

We are pleased to announce that Joseph Cuschieri, MD, FACS, currently Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington, has been appointed the next Trauma Medical Director at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG), commencing March 1, 2021. He also will be a Professor in the Department of Surgery. Dr. Cuschieri currently serves as the Associate Medical Director of Surgical Services at Harborview Medical Center, and Program Director for the Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at the University of Washington. His national service has included active roles in the [...]

We are excited to announce that Tom C. Nguyen, MD, FACS, FACC has been named the new Chief of the Division of Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery and the Helen and Charles Schwab Distinguished Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.  Dr. Nguyen comes to UCSF from the University of Texas Houston (UT-H), where he is Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Chief of Cardiac Surgery, Director of Minimally Invasive Valve Surgery, and Co-Director of Structural Heart Disease.    At UT-H, Dr. Nguyen flourished in a productive practice, with more than [...]

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Ryutaro Hirose has been named the inaugural Vice Chair of Clinical Operations and Value in the Department of Surgery. In his new role, Dr. Hirose will foster excellence and integration of our clinical practices within the UCSF Health System and its partners, and he will work together with surgical leaders at ZSFGH and the SFVA for clinical program development. He will promote efficient, cost effective, and accessible patient care, working to maximize revenues and ensure that faculty and staff have the systems and support they need to do their jobs [...]

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Elizabeth Wick will serve as the inaugural Vice Chair of Quality and Safety for the Department of Surgery. As Vice Chair, Dr. Wick will be responsible for oversight of the Department's quality and patient safety enterprise, focused in the perioperative space. She will collaborate with UCSF Health and the School of Medicine, managing interactions with other departments, centers and programs to promote collaboration that is focused on quality and patient safety.  Dr. Wick is a professor of surgery and Co-Chair for our Department's Research Committee.  She [...]

It is with deep gratitude that we announce Dr. Hobart Harris will be stepping down as Chief of the Division of General Surgery, effective August 31, 2020. Dr. Harris has served as Chief of General Surgery with distinction since 2002. He also served in the capacity of Vice-Chair of the Department from 2002-2008 and 2013-2018. He will continue as a Professor of Surgery and active faculty member.  Dr. Harris has received regional and national recognition for his clinical expertise, as evidenced by his leadership roles and reputation in the clinical field of surgery.  Nationally, he has a robust [...]

Laura J. Esserman, MD, MBA and her research team have been awarded a $9.1M NIH R01 grant from the National Cancer Institue (NCI). The focus of the grant is to enable expansion of The WISDOM Study to new recruitment sites/partnerships including Louisiana State University, the University of Chicago, the University of Alabama, and a women's health clinical care network in Florida. This will advance the goal of increasing diversity in the study, provide the benefits of the study to underserved populations, and enable generalizability of study results to the demographics of the US. Project [...]

      Mark Barry, M.D. Zachary Matthay, M.D.  Adam Wallace, M.D. Ava Yap, M.D.. M.H.Sc.  UCSF Surgery residents were well-represented as awardees of the UCSF CTSI Spring 2020 Resident Research Funding Award. Mark Barry, M.D., Zachary Matthay, M.D. (General Surgery research residents), Adam Wallace, M.D. (Plastic Surgery research resident), and Ava Yap, M.D.. M.H.Sc. (General Surgery PGY3 resident) were all recipients of this highly competitive award. Dr. Barry's award will support his project, "Mitigating Vascular Dysfunction and Lung Injury in Trauma with Human [...]

Sandy Feng, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Surgery and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Surgery, has been named the 2020 recipient of the Clinical Science Established Investigator Award from the American Society of Transplantation (AST). The award is made to a senior clinical scientist who has made significant contributions to the field of transplantation and is recognized as an expert. Dr. Feng is a surgeon-scientist with a stellar record of clinical research and outreach to the community. She has been a principal investigator on multiple U01 clinical trials supported by grants [...]

UCSF Surgeon-scientist Lucy Kornblith, M.D. (PI) and her mentee, Zachary Matthay, M.D. (Co-PI) were awarded two grants for their proposed COVID-19-related research by the UCSF COVID-19 Rapid Response Pilot Grant Program, supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and National Institutes of Health (sponsored by the UCSF Academic Senate, Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and the Research Development Office). The first award will support their proposed prospective study entitled "CO-ACIT: COVID-19 Associated Coagulopathy, Inflammation, and [...]

Since the first community-transmission of Covid-19 was identified in the United States on February 26, 2020,1 the medical community has experienced an upheaval like never before. Looking to the experiences abroad, urgent steps were taken to reduce surgical cases and preserve inpatient capacity for a potential surge of Covid-19 patients.2 Many patients in need of nonurgent but essential surgical care were delayed those services. At the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), we recognized the need to avoid adverse outcomes associated with delaying much-needed cancer, cardiovascular, [...]

"Leaders at a 150-bed community hospital in California partnered with a collective of human-centered designers to rapidly address a sudden drop in emergency department visits after a statewide stay-at-home order was issued. The initiative developed targeted messaging to assuage patient fears about safety and remind patients not to ignore heart and stroke symptoms." Coauthors of this NEJM Catalyst paper include plastic surgery resident Dr. Laura Wong (first author), trauma surgeon & Exec. Dir. of TheBetterLab, Dr. Amanda Sammann and trauma and critical care fellow Dr. Simone Langness.     [...]

Joseph Lin, M.D., a general surgery research resident, was awarded an Education Innovations Funding Grant by the The Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators. These grants, which address a range of priorities in education of students and trainees, are expected to make significant contributions to educational excellence at UCSF. Dr. Lin is a principal investigator on the project entitled, Integrating Palliative Care Skills into Surgical Training along with Patricia O'Sullivan, Ed.D., Professor of Medicine and Surgery, who supported and mentored Dr. Lin along with Kimberly Kirkwood, [...]

The Department of Surgery congratulates transplant surgeon Sandy Feng, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Surgery and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Surgery, on being named the next Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Transplantation (AJT). The full joint news release from ASTS and AST appears below: Feb 07, 2020 On behalf of the American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, we are pleased to announce the selection of Sandy Feng, MD, PhD, as the next Editor-in-Chief of our shared journal, The American Journal of Transplantation [...]