A Monthly Digest of Noteworthy Activities and Achievements

Join us in welcoming our 2024-2025 chief medical residents: top row, left to right: Blythe Butler (SFVAHCS); Ella Cornell (UCSF Health); Diana Funk (SFVAHCS); Chris Gordon (SFVAHCS); and Lauren Phinney (UCSF Health); bottom row, left to right: Ellena Popova (ZSFG); Karena Puldon (UCSF Health); Rob Short (ZSFG); Madison Wilson (ZSFG); and Constance Wu (SFVAHCS).

We also wish to thank our amazing 2023-2024 chief medical residents: Brittany Abel, Catherine Gordon, Kristie Hsu, Tyrone Johnson, Jack McGregor, Madison Malone, Sheyla Medina, Max Pillsbury, and Marcela Zhou Huang.

Honors and News

Michelle Estrella was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI).

Monica Gandhi received the
2024 Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award at UCSF.

Neil Powe was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Gold-Headed Cane Endowed Chairs

Beth Griffiths and Lekshmi Santhosh were selected to serve as the Gold-Headed Cane Endowed Chairs in Internal Medicine. The Chairs, which support outstanding medical educators in our department, are funded by the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators and the DOM.

SPIRIT of DOM Awards

Other Honors and News

Mark Anderson received the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute.

Lewis Blevins received the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE) Excellence in Humanities Award.

Robin Kate Kelley was one of the recipients of the UCSF Health Q1 PRIDE Experience Award.

Jennifer Lai was awarded the American Society of Transplantation 2024 Clinical Established Investigator Award.

Sei Lee was appointed to serve on the US Preventive Services Task Force to improve the health of people nationwide by making evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services.

Elise Riley received the 2024 Jeanne Kreek Award for Research in Underserved Populations from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.

Mary Whooley received the 2023 VA Health Services Reseach (HSR) Daniel Deykin Award for Outstanding Mentor.

Louisa Xie received the Julius R. Krevans Award from the ZSFG Dean’s Office.

Staff Star Achievement Awards

This year, 50 DOM staff members received the campus-wide UCSF STAR Program Achievement Award! Please join us in congratulating the awardees for their exceptional performance. Read about the awardees and their contributions here.

Fellow Awards

Our fellows make extraordinary contributions to our department. Each year, our internal medicine residents honor a fellow in every division. This year, Cody Cichowitz of cardiology (top left) was selected as the overall Fellow of the Year.

Top row, left to right: Cody Cichowitz, Richard Baylis, Jonathan Callan, Edgar Corona, Megan Creasman; middle row, left to right: Suresh Garudadri, Stacy Han, Molly Kelly-Goss, Aye Khine, Alissa Kleinhenz, John Landefeld, Adali Martinez; bottom row, left to right: Uchenna Nwosu, Ramya Parameswaran, Baljeet Rai, Carolyn Rennels, Ramkumar Venkateswaran, Julia Wagner, Sven Walderich.

Resident Faculty Awards

Our internal medicine residents have honored our faculty members with the following awards:

Patricia Cornett Subspecialty Faculty Teaching Award: Mary Gray
Floyd C. Rector Award for Excellence in Teaching: Jaya Mallidi
Harry Hollander Award for Clinical Reasoning: Phoebe Ashley, Daniel Minter
Clinic Preceptor Award: Molly Heublein, Jeff Kohlwes
Research Mentoring (presented at the Rector Symposium): Sanket Dhruva
Longitudinal Subspecialty Clinic Preceptor Award: Jonathan Davis, Teresa De Marco
Residency Advising & Development (RAD) Advisor of the Year Award: Allison Bond, Alekist Quach, Kate Lupton, Lev Malevanchik, Scott Steiger, Aline Zorian

ZSFG Medicine Faculty Awards

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2024 Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital Medicine Faculty Awards!

Jane Bailowitz, MD Volunteer Faculty Award: Ramona Doyle
Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award: Matt Durstenfeld
Clinical Innovator Award: Liz Imbert
Clinical Fellow Award: John Landefeld
Distinction in Medical Education Award: Alex Logan
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award: Katherine Lupton
John F. Murray, MD Award for Academic Excellence in Internal Medicine: Neeta Thakur
Henry F. Chambers, MD Medicine Subspecialty Consultant Award: Sarah Kim
Care Experience Award: Jaya Mallidi
Professional Altruism Award: Justin Tien
Mentoring Award: Jinoos Yazdany
Performance/Quality Improvement Award: Lucas Zier

DOM in the News

Greg Allen discussed breakthrough gene therapies using engineered cells and what they mean for patients (Mercury News).

Ayesha Appa warned that the positive outcomes of harm reduction are getting lost in the debate on drugs and policy (Stat News).

Judith Ashouri spoke about the importance of taking early action on arthritis for Arthritis Awareness Month (KCBS).

Nirav Bhakta discussed the implications of removing a patient’s race from lung function assessment (Stat News).

Hala Borno commented on DEI and inequalities in our health care system in a panel discussion on COVID (Fortune).

Peter Chin-Hong explained the recent uptick in COVID (NBC and The New York Times) and expressed caution around the elderly (Los Angeles Times). He also discussed bird flu and human bird flu vaccines (CNBC).

Monica Gandhi compared the day in 1998 when there were no HIV deaths in California to April 2, 2024, when there were no COVID deaths in the state (Mercury News).

Dawn Gross suggested exploring the power of curiosity in discussing end-of-life issues with patients (TEDx Talk).

Margot Kushel discussed how nearly half of California’s homeless people are over 50 (Mercury News and Los Angeles Times) and observed that family caregivers are at heightened risk of becoming unhoused (NPR).

Marlene Martin participated in a national radio broadcast on the addiction crisis (Radio Bilingue).

Dean Ornish found that those who prioritized diet, exercise, and stress reduction saw improvements in Alzheimer’s symptoms (CNN, TIME Magazine, and Good Morning, America).

Lisa Rotenstein noted that male and female physicians have different interaction styles with their patients (KCBS).

Ida Sim discussed the challenges that physicians have in accessing and interpreting the data produced by medical apps and devices (Stat News).

Leslie Suen warned that pushing SF residents into drug rehab treatment could alienate them from the healthcare system (Mercury News).

Paul Volberding discussed how, even in his 70s, he continues to have nightmares about his work in the early days of the HIV-AIDS epidemic (The Washington Post).

Recent Grants of Note

Peter Hunt and Steven Yukl: a grant of $4.1M over five years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for a project entitled, “Understanding and targeting the HIV-expressing reservoir to reduce immune activation.”

Elaine Ku: a renewal of a grant of $3.7M over five years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for a project entitled, “Racial disparities in access to kidney transplantation.”

Vasanth Vedantham: a grant of $2.9M over five years from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute for a project entitled, “Transcriptional Regulation of Sinoatrial Node Development.”

Recent Publications of Note

Aksamit TR, Locantore N, Addrizzo-Harris D... Zha BS. Five-year outcomes among U.S. bronchiectasis and nontuberculous mycobacterial registry patients. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2024 Apr 26. Epub ahead of print. PubMed Citation

Barker W, Maisel N, Strawley CE, Israelit GK, Adler-Milstein J, Rosner B. A national survey of digital health company experiences with electronic health record application programming interfaces. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2024;31:866-874. PubMed Citation

Bivona TG. Phase-separated biomolecular condensation in cancer: new horizons and next frontiers. Cancer Discov. 2024;14:630-634. PubMed Citation

Brooks KC, Raffel KE, Chia D... Ranji SR. Stigmatizing language, patient demographics, and errors in the diagnostic process. JAMA Intern Med. 2024;184:704-706. PubMed Citation

Chambers HF, Zhang S, Evans S. Duke infective endocarditis criteria 3.0 for the clinician: defining what is possible. Clin Infect Dis. 2024;78:964-967. PubMed Citation

Chung SA, Huang AJ, Murali MR, Chwalisz BK, Wallace ZS, Kozanno LN. Case 11-2024: An 82-year-old woman with falls and cognitive decline. N Engl J Med. 2024;390:1312-1322. PubMed Citation

Dhruva SS, Ross JS, Steinman MA, Gan S, Muluk S, Anderson TS. Intravascular microaxial left ventricular assist device manufacturer payments to cardiologists and use of devices. JAMA. 2024;331:1499-1501. PubMed Citation

Kuruvilla P. When the boards fail us—structural bias in certification examinations. JAMA Intern Med. 2024;184:349-350. PubMed Citation

Neyton LPA, Sinha P, Sarma A... Gomez A, Hendrickson CM, Kangelaris KN, Liu KD, Matthay MA, Langelier CR, Calfee CS. Host and microbe blood metagenomics reveals key pathways characterizing critical illness phenotypes. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2024;209:805-815. PubMed Citation

Peluso MJ, Swank ZN, Goldberg SA... Dalhuisen T, Clark A, Huang B, Durstenfeld MS, Spinelli MA, Henrich TJ, Kelly JD, Deeks SG. Plasma-based antigen persistence in the post-acute phase of COVID-19. Lancet Infect Dis. 2024;24:e345-e347. PubMed Citation

Sarkar U, Bates DW. Using artificial intelligence to improve primary care for patients and clinicians. JAMA Intern Med. 2024;184:343-344. PubMed Citation

Sinha P, Neyton L, Sarma A... Liu KD, Langelier CR, Matthay MA, Calfee CS. Molecular phenotypes of acute respiratory distress syndrome in the ROSE trial have differential outcomes and gene expression patterns that differ at baseline and longitudinally over time. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2024;209:816-828. PubMed Citation

Thakur N, Balmes JR. Fine-scale neighborhood air pollution mapping: a first step towards decoding racial asthma disparities. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2024 Apr 11. Epub ahead of print. PubMed Citation

See all 120 DOM-authored publications from last month.

The 26^th Annual Holly Smith Dinner

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