Monthly Newsletter | March 2025

Leo Liu, Yalda Shahram, and Kasia Kadelia have been awarded Academy of Medical Educator Grants.

Augmented Reasoning in Small Group Education (ARISE)

Principal Investigator: Xinran (Leo) Liu, MD, MS, FAMIA working with Jessica Pourin, MD, FAAP; Augusto Garcia-Agundez, PhD; Sirisha Narayana, MD; Travis Zack, MD, PhD; Margaret Fang, MD, MPH; Gurpreet Dhaliwal, MD; Sumant Ranji, MD

Description: The ARISE proposal aims to address the risk of “de-skilling” among medical trainees due to the increasing reliance on quick answers from AI and large language models (LLMs) by developing an AI tool to enhance the learning of clinical reasoning—a skill we believe will be even more important in the age of AI. We propose a chatbot designed to function as an expert Socratic tutor, providing real-time feedback to medical students as they work through clinical cases. Efficacy will be evaluated during the UCSF Diagnostic Reasoning Block using a mix of observations, surveys, chatbot usage analytics, and formative feedback. Successful implementation could significantly enhance clinical reasoning education and lead to broader adoption within medical training and across peer institutions like the other UC systems. 

Creating and Sustaining a Faculty Community Trained to Address Equity-Oriented Medical Curriculum

Principal Investigators: Aaron Baugh, MD; Yalda Shahram, MD; Kala Mehta, DSc, MPH; Aimee Medieros, PhD; Rosa Manzo, PhD

Co-Sponsored by: The Salvatore Pablo Lucia Chair in Preventive Medicine, held by Lydia Zablotska, MD, PhD, MPA; the Gold-headed Cane Endowed Education Chair in Internal Medicine, held by Lekshmi Santhosh, MD, MA; the Gold-headed Cane Endowed Teaching Chair in Internal Medicine, held by Elizabeth Griffiths, MD, MPH

Description: Yalda Shahram is a co-director of the Justice & Advocacy in Medicine (JAM) course in the Foundations 1 Bridges curriculum in the School of Medicine. Together, the JAM teaching team is excited to collaborate with community partners to train faculty in a community of practice.

Multipronged Assessment and Re-envisioning of Health Equity Bundle Curriculum

Principal Investigator: Kasia Kadela, MD working with Nancy Choi, MD; Cindy Lai, MD; Kewchang Lee, MD; Megan Richie, MD; Mia Williams, MD; James Harrison, PhD

Description: Our aim is to conduct a multipronged assessment of the existing health equity bundle curriculum for third year medical students, revise the curriculum to better meets learner needs and more effectively promote health equity, and begin expansion to other clerkships.

Meet DHM

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

Shubhra Gupta has been appointed to serve on the Society of Hospital Medicine Hospital Quality and Patient Safety Advocates Advisory Council.

Event Title: Survival, Healing, and Performance: Formerly Incarcerated Voices on Health Justice Inside & Out

Event Location and Date: 198 McAllister St (Auditorium) on Thursday, April 3, 2025, 6-8:30 pm

Blurb: This event is a DHM-led initiative, led by Elizabeth Dzeng and her research team, comprising Sofia Weiss Goitiandia, Sharifa Brooks-Smith-Lowe, Julia Axelrod, and Catthi Ly. The event features performances by three solo theater performers, Tony Cyprien, Pamela Ann Keane, and Tylon Sizemore, all of whom have lived through incarceration, sharing their personal encounters with the justice and healthcare systems. Through their stories, the performers will explore life behind bars and upon reentering society. Their poignant and necessary narratives will shed light on injustices entrenched within the carceral system, including systemic obstacles to adequate healthcare and the poor treatment endured by incarcerated individuals, especially those from marginalized racial backgrounds. Following the performances, there will be a live Q+A with the performers, UCSF researchers, and a former Alameda County Public Defender. Attendance is free — sign up using this Eventbrite link!

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.

March 25, 7 pm: Trivia night at San Francisco Athletic Club! Join fellow DHMers to test your knowledge of 80s hits, pop culture, sports, and general knowledge. Food and beverages are pay as you go. 

April 13, 3 pm: Hike on Lands End towards Ocean Beach, weather permitting. Families + dogs on a leash are welcome. More details to come on the Outlook invitation regarding starting and ending points, weather permitting. 

Join the CBC team or suggest an event here!

Equity & Belonging in Hospital Medicine

We have some great volunteer and learning opportunities for DHM that are focused on Equity & Belonging!

1. DHM's Social Medicine team is hosting volunteer opportunities at GLIDE in the Tenderloin. Come serve lunch at GLIDE's Free Meal Program with your fellow DHMers! Please enter your name and email in this spreadsheet for the shift you want to join. Email Natalie at Natalie.Francis@ucsf.edu if you have any questions. Upcoming GLIDE Lunch-Shift Volunteer Dates:

• Wednesday, March 26^th 11:30am-1:30pm
• Thursday, April 17^th 11:30am-1:30pm
• Wednesday, May 14^th 11:30am-1:30pm

2. Join a special Tea House event: Yalda Shahram and Sally Guthrie are hosting a special Tea House event on May 30, 2025, from 9am-4pm on campus for CME credit. The principles of Targeted Universalism (Targeted Universalism Explained) will be applied to the dialogue-based curriculum throughout the day. Register here: Tea House Registration Survey.

3. Ethel Wu and Bassem Ghali have sent out an invite for clinicians to join as volunteers with the San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium's (SFCCC) Street Outreach Services. SOS is currently seeking 1-4 medical providers for its clinics on Wednesday or Friday mornings, 9AM-12PM. There is one provider per clinic but up to 4 providers may share a shift (e.g., one clinician volunteers the 1st Wednesday, another volunteers the 2nd Wednesday, etc.). For more information on how to volunteer with SOS, interested parties may contact SOS Program Manager, Lara Cruz, at lcruz@sfccc.org.

4. Also from Ethel Wu and Bassem Ghali: UCSF Health and Human Rights Initiative's Human Rights Collaborative is looking for volunteer medical providers to do forensic medical evaluations for refugees seeking asylum in the United States. The forensic medical exam drastically improves the likelihood of asylum seekers winning their cases (~85-90% of applications). Interested volunteers should go to the training website to email coordinators and find out more. Each evaluation usually takes at least 3 hours at the Laurel Heights clinic. Time commitment request: at least 3 evaluations per year.

The PFAC: Updates

February's PFAC meeting had two visitors—Himali Weerahandi joined us to discuss her research on long COVID-19 and disability and cognitive impairment over time, and Amy Hyams from Patient Experience came to discuss the updated requirements for PFAC member volunteers across UCSF. The new PFAC Member Onboarding requirements come from Volunteer Services; background checks and volunteer trainings are now required for all members to join a PFAC. We discussed ways to make this accessible to current members. 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

Himali Weerahandi and Andy Auerbach led a study published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine on how electronic health record (EHR) behavioral alerts are applied across hospital workplace violence prevention programs and inpatient clinician perspectives on whether these alerts prevent violence.

Brandon Scott

"Dr. Scott, I appreciate working with you and that you are consistently patient and supportive of both me and our patients. As just on example, thanks for the time you took last week to communicate clearly with me about your plans so I could share them with our patient who needed it. I am grateful that I get to work with you."

- Heidi Lidtke