Monthly Newsletter | June 2025

Lena Loo has been awarded the SPIRIT of DOM Award. Lena has been a vital part of her team since June 2019. In her current role, she wears many hats — serving as the staff lead for faculty recruitment, co-leading staff engagement and training, providing project support to faculty, and serving as the executive assistant to the division chief.

Meet DHM

Get to know our division by reading our faculty and staff interviews!

Michelle Mourad is the Acting Chair of the UCSF Department of Medicine from June 9 through September 30, 2025.

Esther Hsiang and Tim Judson are members of the team who received the FY26 Caring Wisely Project award to continuing expanding the initiative "Remote Blood Pressure Monitoring Among High-Risk Obstetric Patients to Decrease Unnecessary Inpatient Utilization."

Natalie Francis is a Pilot Participant in the new Faculty Developers for Anti-Oppression and Belonging Program (FDAB).

Liz Dzeng presented her comparative ethnographic research at an invited seminar at the Cicely Saunders Institute, King's College London, titled "How hospital cultures and structures influence intensity of end-of-life care and clinician moral distress in the United States and the United Kingdom."

Himali Weerahandi is a lead author on the chapter "The role of research and evidence" in the newly published Elsevier book by Structural Inequalities and Health Outcomes for Chronic Disease.

Ashraf Abugroun was awarded the KL2 Career Development Award through the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute. This award supports his research to develop a precision aging framework that integrates biological and functional measures to improve risk prediction and guide targeted care for older adults.

Nancy Choi and Millie Arora were selected to be facilitators in the CECH communication skills program next academic year.

Carmen Cobb-Walch and Martha Ockenfels-Martinez recently graduated from the Spring 2025 Community-Building Circle Facilitator Training hosted by the Office of Restorative Justice Practices at UCSF.

QI team meets Dr. Thomas Lee, Chief Medical Officer at Press Ganey and a nationally renowned leader in quality at the UCSF Health Improvement Symposium.

Community Corner

Welcome to the heart of DHM! This spot is all about keeping you in the loop on all things community—highlights from last month's events, snapshots of fun moments, and a heads-up on what's coming up next month. Keep an eye here for dates, details, and photos that celebrate our DHM community spirit! Reach out to Rosemary Yau to share yours.

Volunteering at GLIDE

Come serve lunch at GLIDE's Free Meal Program with DHM's Social Medicine Group 6/25/2025, 11am-1:30pm. Use the link to sign up: https://ucsf.box.com/s/idj60wc05e258urwf534i3gctj32blpr

DHM UC Moves Team

The DHM team that participated in this Spring's UC Moves Challenge was a great success! We had 11 people participate on our DHM team this year — a mix of staff and faculty — and we logged a collective total of 1,986,248 steps through the 1-month challenge.

DHM at UCSF Health Improvement Symposium

More pictures available here.

CHS Hospitalists Farewell Celebration at House of Pancakes

Join the CBC team or suggest an event here!

Equity & Belonging in Hospital Medicine

For this month's Equity & Belonging section, we have an opportunity to support visiting scholars & an invitation to the World Sickle Cell Day Celebration:

Shadowing Program for Visiting Scholars

As part of our ongoing commitment to medical education and Equity & Belonging, we are developing a shadowing program for visiting medical scholars, students, and residents — many of whom come from vulnerable environments and/or from institutions with fewer opportunities for academic hospital medicine exposure. This program will allow observers to gain insight into clinical care, team dynamics, and UCSF's approach to academic medicine in a supportive, inclusive environment. If you’d consider hosting a visiting observer for a day or more, please fill out this short survey to let us know. Your participation can have a meaningful impact — and will be structured to be low-burden and fully voluntary. Additionally, if you want to be more involved in coordinating this work, please reach out to Archna Eniasivam, Akshar Rambachan, Bassem Ghali, or Ethel Wu.

World Sickle Cell Day Celebration

During a recent stint on UC Wards, Prashant Patel and team took care of multiple patients hospitalized as a result of illnesses stemming from or procedures required for their sickle cell disorder. One of the patients shared the following invitation to all of us to attend the local World Sickle Cell Day Celebration on Sunday June 22nd from 12pm-4pm at DeFremery Park in Oakland. The event is open to all, including physicians, to help celebrate "Sickle Cell Warriors" and build community among all who have some familiarity with the disorder. The event is from The Pull Up and is in partnership with UCSF, more information here.

The PFAC: Updates

At May's Patient & Family Advisory Council meeting, Monisha Bhatia joined the group to give an update on the work they are doing with Ashish Gandhi and others, on after-visit summary (AVS) modifications. This team had previously visited the PFAC to seek input on the quality improvement project. After their team took in and incorporated PFAC feedback, they returned to the PFAC to let the council know how their impact had shaped the work. If you have an idea, concept, or current work you'd like to present to the PFAC to get direct patient and family-feedback, please email Martha to schedule a time to join us!

- Signed, the PFAC facilitator team, Jeannie, Mia, Martha & James

Photo of 3 PFAC members, Darryl, Harry, and Michelle

Ashraf Abugroun led a study, along with Colin Hubbard and Margaret Fang, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society that showed how high social engagement lowered the risk of death in older adults.

Liz Dzeng and her team's research was featured in JAMA Internal Medicine as an editorial and was interviewed in a podcast about her research on differences between the United States and United Kingdom that may influence differing intensities of serious illness care for people living with dementia. This included the ability to fall back on guidelines in the UK, differing ethical norms, and different "set points" for what may be considered non-beneficial treatments near the end of life — in the UK fluids and antibiotics were the point of contention rather than e.g., mechanical ventilation and CPR in the US.

Sarah Apgar and Armond Esmaili were featured in May's ACP Hospitalist (Hospital Medicine Magazine). "Step Up to Face Challenging Encounters" summarizes their SHM Converge 2025 talk on de-escalation, trauma-informed care, addressing race and racism, and the UCSF Code CARE Team.

Sarah Flynn and Esther Hsiang are coauthors of a point-counterpoint article published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine which highlights the positive and negative aspects of secure messaging and provides broad recommendations to optimize its use for inpatient clinical communications. 

Viridiana Garcia

"Huge shout out to Viridiana Garcia who recently cared for a young patient with end stage alcoholic hepatitis. She did it with compassion, fierce determination, and logistical wizardry. Although the patient won't get a transplant soon, what Viri did for her stands out. Especially on Mother's Day. You were a hero for her and her dad."

- Lev Malevanchik

Jera Lewis

"Huge shout out to Jera Lewis, who went way above and beyond on her swan shifts this week caring for my patient with end stage cancer and a million complications. She had two goals of care meetings on two separate days with the family and was so thoughtful and thorough. I feel like we were a team, even if we weren't working at the same time. Thank you so much for your excellent care Jera."

- Lev Malevanchik