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In Memory of Arthur Norman Thomas M.D. 1931 – 2025

Arthur Norman Thomas, MD
01/27/1931 – 06/29/2025
“Dr. Arthur N. Thomas died at home on Sunday, June 29, at the age of 94. He is survived by his beloved wife of nearly 75 years, Adeline, their five children, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
Dr. Thomas chose to become a surgeon at age 13, a decision that shaped a distinguished career spanning six decades. He published more than 125 scientific articles, contributed to several medical textbooks, and was a frequent presenter at surgical conferences.
A pioneer in hyperbaric medicine, Dr. Thomas led early research into the use of hyperbaric environments to enable surgeries requiring extended periods with poor circulation. Soon after, he was awarded a prestigious three-year grant from the National Institute of Health to explore the use of membranous oxygenators for prolonged heart-lung bypass.
Dr. Thomas served as Chief of Thoracic Surgery at San Francisco General Hospital, where he became a member of the first trauma team ever assembled. He spent the rest of his career as Professor of Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, one of the country’s finest surgical training programs.
His innovative approach to surgery laid the groundwork for today’s surgical procedures for cardiac rhythm disorders and esophageal disorders and injuries. Some 15.8 million Americans each year are affected by these conditions. He co-founded the Samson Thoracic Surgical Society in 1974, later known as the Western Thoracic Surgical Association (WTSA). This professional organization today is a robust institution
with hundreds of members.
Dr. Thomas’s legacy endures in the lives he touched, the students he mentored, and the many contributions he made to the advancement of medicine. A private memorial service will be held by the family.”

Published by San Francisco Chronicle on Jul. 13, 2025.

SF CHRONICLE LINK

2025 Chiefs’ Welcome Picnic

The Naffziger Society held its annual Chiefs’ Welcome Picnic on Saturday, June 7th, at the Elk Glen Picnic Area in Golden Gate Park. Thank you to Dr. Sosa, our esteemed faculty, and all society members who joined us to celebrate and warmly welcome our newest alumni into the community.

Spearheaded by President Jen Wang, the rising chiefs added a fun and personal touch to the event by creating lighthearted awards for this year’s chiefs. Special thanks to Tom Sorrentino and Basil Karam for putting together an outstanding presentation that brought laughter, reflection, and camaraderie to the celebration.

This tradition offers a meaningful opportunity to connect, reflect, and share insights as the chiefs begin the next chapter of their careers. As Dr. Kenzo Hirose aptly put it, it’s “like the brunch following a wedding”—a time to celebrate, reminisce, and look ahead together. We’re truly grateful to everyone who helped make this event a success.

Save the Date for Loupes Day!

Loupes Day Wednesday, September 18, 2024

The annual loupes ceremony is set for Wednesday, September 18, 2024. We hope you can join us in person or via zoom as we present the second year residents with their loupes, named for members of the Naffziger Society. Names of the residents and honorees will be announced soon, please check back here for details!

Upcoming Event: 37th Annual Resident Research Symposium

The J. Engelbert Dunphy Resident Research Symposium is an annual event which showcases the research of residents, fellows and medical students in the Department of Surgery, and honors the life and accomplishments of J. Engelbert Dunphy, M.D., a legendary surgeon and a former chair of the UCSF Department of Surgery.

Wednesday, May 8, 2024
7:00 AM – 4:15 PM
Location: CS-0101, Parnassus campus
This event will also be live streamed here.

Event Program and Abstracts

Joel L. Ramirez, MD

1. How did you get interested in your research topic?

I have always found aortic aneurysms to be fascinating and often dramatic. Their slow development over time allows for a clear window for treatment, yet operative management ca be very challenging and high-risk. Since my first days in the operating room with vascular surgery, I have wondered why we haven’t been able to develop a therapeutic to stop or reverse aortic aneurysm development. This ultimately has led me to want to better understand the role that the immune system plays in aneurysm development with the goal of identifying a target for a novel therapeutic.

2. How did you select your research mentorship team?

My research interests aligned well with the mission of Dr. Adam Oskowitz’s basic science laboratory. It was natural to work with him and our interests organically aligned. We then identified Dr. Alexis Combes as a collaborator given his laboratory’s extensive experience with single cell RNA sequencing and access to cutting edge spatial transcriptomics platforms.

3. How will you incorporate your research into your future career goals?

I hope to bridge the gap between patients, clinical data, and the laboratory. As a surgeon, I hope to be uniquely positioned to build trust with my patients, recruit them to participate in translational research studies, and increase our ability to build biobanks of blood and tissue samples to be studied. 

Nisha Parmeshwar, MD

1. How did you get interested in your research topic?

Early in my residency with a particular interest in reconstructive surgery, I started looking into outcomes of our breast reconstruction patients at UCSF. I noticed that despite many surgeons routinely giving extended courses of oral antibiotics to post-mastectomy patients after implant-based breast reconstruction, our data showed relatively high infection rates, as did the literature. It made us wonder about the utility of antibiotics then in truly protecting against infections, or potentially breeding resistance for more devastating, untreatable implant complications. The field of microbiome science is a novel way to study this problem which had never been seen before in plastic surgery, and our group hypothesized there could be individualized differences in the breast and gut microbiome of certain patients that could predispose one to develop an infection and/or to benefit from prophylactic antibiotics.  Given its broad application in all surgical fields I was extremely interested in helping to carry out our prospective randomized trial looking at the effect of prophylactic antibiotics on a patient’s microbiome, and breast reconstructive outcomes.

Similarly, I wondered about other ways to improve our outcomes, and was curious about the application of topical tranexamic acid (TXA), something that is used frequently off-label in aesthetic surgery and pediatric plastic surgery to decreased bleeding. I think it has the potential, with minimal associated risks, to improve hematoma and seroma outcomes in breast surgery. After systematically reviewing the literature for supporting evidence, I helped start a new trial looking at the use of topical TXA in breast reconstruction patients.

2. How did you select your research mentorship team?

I was fortunate to find an incredibly supportive research mentorship team of amazing female role models. I started working with Dr. Merisa Piper from my intern year with a few clinical outcome projects in breast reconstruction, and those projects looking at our institutional outcomes really served as the foundation for our inquiries on how/what we could do to improve our complication rates.  I was then connected with Dr. Laura Esserman as a result of previous microbiome work she had done among breast cancer patients, and she helped foster more creative thinking and design of studies to help solve our clinical problems. Additionally, Dr. Laura Barnes who is a plastic surgery resident one year above me spearheaded the microbiome project from the ground up, inspiring me to continue in her footsteps with this trial, and start another looking at TXA.

3. How will you incorporate your research into your future career goals?

I am interested in academic reconstructive plastic surgery and my dedicated research year in residency helped me develop translational research skills required to ask and answer questions that could affect clinical change, while working with multi-disciplinary groups to solve complex problems in health care. I am excited about the possibilities for microbiome science, and hope to leverage knowledge of this innovative area in my career for improved outcomes in the future.