News & Events

“The far-reaching implications were made painfully clear” in an eloquent and moving essay in the New England Journal of Medicine by John Maa, M.D., Assistant Professor of Surgery and Director of the UCSF Surgical Hospitalist Program. A national leader in improving emergency care, “Dr. Maa describes the all-too-familiar story of a 69-year-old woman who is admitted to the E.R. for a procedure to correct an irregular heartbeat. Her operation is delayed because she has to board for a full day while waiting for a real bed. During the delay, she suffers a major stroke and dies…………The woman, we learn, was the author’s mother.”
— Excerpt from NY Times article by noted physician-journalist Dr. Pauline Chen

“The Waits that Matter” – Essay in The New England Journal of Medicine”

NY Times: “When Hospital Overcrowding Becomes Personal”

Wall Street Journal Online Network: “Long hospital Wait Times Can be Deadly”

Warren Gasper, M.D., junior fellow in the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery and a member of the research lab of Christopher Owens M.D., was awarded first prize in the poster competition at the annual meeting of the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) for the posterPercutaneous Peri-Adventitial Guanethidine Delivery Induces Renal Artery Sympathectomy: Preclinical Experience and Implication for Refractory Hypertension. One hundred researchers competed worldwide for the honor. The President and President-Elect of SVS, and an audience of vascular surgeons, choose the winner after viewing PowerPoint presentations from the ten finalists.

View Dr. Gasper’s winning poster abstract

Linda M. Reilly, M.D., Professor of Surgery in the Division of Vascular & Endovascular Surgery at UCSF, has been inducted into the prestigious “Society of Scholars”. Established in 1967 by Johns Hopkins University, the Society recognizes individuals whose careers began at Hopkins, and later rose to prominence in their fields through distinguished achievement. Dr. Reilly has the additional distinction of being the first woman to complete the General Surgery Residency program at Hopkins, one of the most storied in the country. She is now Director of a similarly distinguished program at UCSF. An outstanding and compassionate physician, Dr. Reilly is also Principal Investigator in a number of clinical trials focused on the improvement of devices and refinement of surgical technique in endovascular repair of complex aortic aneurysms. She is widely-respected for her clinical investigations that have led to numerous advances in treatment and improvements in patient outcomes.

Last year, a team led by Dr. Peter Stock of UCSF reported on results from a large multicenter study testing the safety and feasibility of transplanting kidneys where both the donor and recipients were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The results, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the recipients survived nearly as long as non-HIV infected recipients of kidney transplants. As a result of the Stock-led trial, and a just-published paper from Johns Hopkins projecting that 500 to 600 H.I.V.-infected livers and kidneys would become available each year if the ban were repealed, the paradigm appears to be changing. Federal health agencies, including the CDC, are now urging, as reported by the N.Y. Times in today’s editions, that the absolute ban on transplanting H.I.V.-positive organs be lifted.

A New Push to Let H.I.V. Patients Accept Organs That Are Infected

Kidney transplants Found Safe in HIV patients

New England Journal of Medicine – Outcomes of Kidney Transplantation in HIV-Infected Recipients

Estimating the Potential Pool of HIV-Infected Deceased Organ Donors in the United States

“Andre Campbell, M.D. a UCSF professor of surgery, was recognized on March 29 by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for his outstanding service as a trauma and acute care surgeon at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH).”

Read the Article

UCSF breast surgeon Laura J. Esserman, M.D., M.B.A. (pictured left), and medical oncologist Hope S. Rugo, M.D. are featured on PBS’ “Need to Know” series as pioneers in breast cancer research. Dr. Esserman discussed the I-SPY 2 TRIAL in which pharmaceutical companies collaboratively bring multiple experimental therapies to the marketplace, allowing numerous combinations novel agents to be tested in clinical trials iteratively. Specific drug combinations are personalized to the molecular characteristics of each patient’s tumor using sophisticated biomarker assays. Dr. Rugo is leading a study to improve the quality of life in chemotherapy patients through a new treatment that cools the scalp and prevents or minimizes hair loss.

Potential Breakthroughs in Breast Cancer Research

I-SPY 2 TRIAL: Neoadjuvant and Personalized Adaptive Novel Agents to Treat Breast Cancer

“After a 50th reunion for business school made him “very neck-conscious,” Douglas Weil, 74, signed up for an isolated neck-lift in November with Dr. William Y. Hoffman, the Professor and Chief of the Plastic surgery division at the University of California, San Francisco. “It was one of the last things I ever thought I’d do,” Mr. Weil said, adding he hasn’t thought twice about his baldness. But now he’s thrilled with his sleek neckline, he said, and even told his rabbi about the surgery. The rabbi’s retort? “What men do to please their women!”

Read NY Times Article

“One of only a handful of physicians with formal training in both vascular surgery and interventional radiology, Dr. Darren B. Schneider has been appointed chief of vascular and endovascular surgery and director of the Center for Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. He has also been named associate professor of surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College.”

….’As one of the world’s leaders in the minimally invasive surgical procedures, and an expert in vascular surgery, endovascular surgery and interventional radiology, he is uniquely qualified to lead our Center for Vascular and Endovascular Surgery and guide the development of innovative treatments for patients suffering from vascular disease,’ says Dr. Fabrizio Michelassi, chairman of the Department of Surgery and the Lewis Atterbury Stimson Professor of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College and surgeon-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.”

Read full story at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell News

“Surgeons at UCSF have taken a major step down the path toward less invasive procedures, performing San Francisco’s first gallbladder removal using only a single, small incision hidden within the navel.

The procedure, which took place in May, is a significant advance in the field of minimally invasive surgery, said UCSF gastrointestinal surgeon Jonathan Carter, MD, w surgical team………”

Read Full Article in UCSF Today