Monthly Newsletter | September 2025 | | |
Welcome DHM New Hires
Welcome to all the DHM New Hires who recently joined DHM this summer. Onboarding season is always a highlight of the year, and we look forward to working with and getting to know all of you in the weeks and months ahead! Below are our newest hires that are joining us as of September.
| | General Medicine Hospitalists | | |
Jazmin Perez
Jazmin earned her medical degree from Stanford and completed her residency at UCSF. In her spare time, she enjoys nature walks, working on craft projects, and spending time with her family especially her nephew. She's a fan of baking shows and has a unique talent that many people know about: she knows how to make piñatas. On Sunday mornings, you'll often find Jazmin tending to her plants with a cup of coffee in hand.
Service Coverage: General Medicine
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Rami Halaseh
Rami earned his medical degree from George Washington University and completed his residency and chief year at Kaiser SF. He loves bird watching, going on nature walks, and trying out new restaurants. While he enjoys pizza, his favorite dish is kalbijim from Daeho. Rami's current go-to TV show is The Righteous Gemstones. Something not many people know about him is that he used to be a professional portrait photographer. If he could be anywhere right now, he'd choose a tropical beach. As a kid, he dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. On Sunday mornings, you'll usually find him strolling through a farmer's market.
Service Coverage: CHS
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Brinda Ryali
Brinda earned her medical degree from Western Michigan University and completed her residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Rush University Medical Center. In her spare time, she loves taking dance classes, hosting elaborate dinner parties, cheering on the Warriors and Valkyries, playing basketball, and exploring new restaurants (she's a big foodie!). If she could be anywhere right now, she’d be on a flight to her next travel destination. Her go-to drinks at happy hour are a whiskey sour or a glass of red wine. On Sunday mornings, you’ll usually find Brinda at her favorite basketball workout class — Swish House — in Chicago. She's excited to discover her new Sunday morning routine in SF.
Service Coverage: NHS, Pediatrics
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Kevin Tea
Kevin earned his medical degree and completed his residency at Tulane University. He loves spending his spare time weightlifting, traveling, hiking, gaming, or just kicking back and relaxing. Kevin's favorite food is tacos. If he could be anywhere right now, he'd be at home.
Service Coverage: NHS
| | Jaclyn Vargas was selected as a 2025 recipient of the Selected for the Exemplary Professionalism in the Clinical Learning Environment Award from the UC San Diego School of Medicine. | | | Liz Dzeng is helping to lead the newly funded ASCENT Consortium to Advance Palliative Care Research as a member of the Research Education Committee (career development) core. This U54 grant application entitled Advancing the Science of Palliative Care Research Across the Lifespan (ASCENT) Consortium will include a national consortium of experts in palliative care that will advance innovative, high-quality research to improve care for people living with serious illness by providing resources and expertise in a coordinated manner. | | | |
HEAL is recruiting for our California Fellowship!
The work is hard. You don't have to do it alone. The California HEAL Program, run by the UCSF HEAL Initiative, provides physicians with intensive training, one-on-one mentorship, and protected time for community health projects, enabling them to improve healthcare quality and access in their communities. Learn more about our placements in the Central Valley, Inland Empire, and San Diego, and apply by September 30, 2025 through the website. The next cohort kicks off July 2026.
| | 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. | | New Faculty Onboarding Sessions and Party | | Staff Strategy Session and Happy Hour | | Join the CBC team or suggest an event here! | | Equity & Belonging in Hospital Medicine | |
For this month's Equity & Belonging section, we are sharing an invitation to attend the UCSF annual Health Equity and Anti-Racism Research (HEAR) Symposium:
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UCSF HEAR Symposium 2025
- Wednesday, October 8, 2025
- 8:00 AM - 3:00 PM
- Mission Bay Conference Center, 1675 Owens Street
The annual UCSF Health Equity and Anti-Racism Research (HEAR) Symposium showcases research and action to advance health equity. The goal of the symposium is to build community among researchers across disciplines and across units, schools and campus sites and the wider Bay Area. More information is available here.
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Campus Safety Reminder: At UCSF, if federal law enforcement officials, including ICE officers, visit any UCSF office, here are steps you could take:
Contact UCSF Police (Non-Emergency):
- Call 415-476-1414 for guidance. They will initiate the triage process.
If a student is detained:
Phone: 530-219-7816
Email: grace.ucimm@law.ucdavis.edu
Keep handy:
- The contact number for UCSF's Chief Campus Counsel: 415-476-5003
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You're invited! We are scheduling guests to our DHM Patient and Family Advisory Council for the upcoming academic year — come join us! Meeting with the PFAC is a great way to get patient and family expertise on your QI project, research, or clinical work. Members are either current or former patients or family/caretakers of patients — with key insights from the patient and family perspective. We especially encourage new faculty to come visit the PFAC for a monthly meeting. Email Martha to join us!
- Signed, the PFAC facilitator team, Jeannie, Martha, and Mia
| | | Julia Axelrod, a DHM Research Assistant, together with Liz Dzeng, Sofia Weiss Goitiandia, and Teva Brender, published a commentary in the American Journal of Bioethics about the potential harms of using the medical futility standard to guide treatment decisions for unrepresented patients near the end of life. | | | Anand Habib had a letter-to-the-editor published in JAMA in response to a viewpoint regarding administrative burdens in clinical care. He cautions against the belief that technological solutions alone, rather than structural reforms in the way healthcare is delivered and financed, will alleviate administrative costs that impede clinicians' ability to provide timely clinical care. | | More Publications from DHM | | | Annie Droste and Aline Zorian | | |
"I would like to take a moment to say "Thank you" to Annie Droste and Aline Zorian for their tremendous support throughout the scheduling process especially as we restructured the blocks to help streamline automation. From meeting with our consultant to making constant adjustments to ensure everything looked right and ran smoothly, your guidance and consistent support made all the difference. I'm truly grateful for your time, dedication, and everything you've done. I couldn't have done it without you both. THANK YOU!"
- Christine Lam
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"Shoutout to an Amazing Team Effort! On a rare night in 4E with 1 Code Blue and 2 ICU transfers, everyone showed outstanding teamwork. Special thanks to Mary Welter our hospitalist for her quick action and expert care, ensuring fast transfers to higher-level care. Huge thanks to Cris, ICU RN for your support during the code. Incredible teamwork all around, Dr. Yee, Carol, Fresia, Alex, John, Junnalyn — thank you for keeping our patients safe!"
- Jennifer Munoz
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"Dr. Ullal, Thank you for the excellent care and advocacy that you are providing for our patient who has been here a long time. The limited social support of the patient proves for challenging goals of care discussions. By speaking to the patient with respect and clarity, you are providing an opportunity for the patient to participate in their decision-making and goals of care discussions. You're a fantastic physician and I'm lucky to get to work with you when you're here at MZ!"
- Valerie, Case Manager
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If you have content you would like to share for an upcoming newsletter, please reach out to Tiffany.Lee@ucsf.edu.
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