News & Events

Since the first community-transmission of Covid-19 was identified in the United States on February 26, 2020,1 the medical community has experienced an upheaval like never before. Looking to the experiences abroad, urgent steps were taken to reduce surgical cases and preserve inpatient capacity for a potential surge of Covid-19 patients.2 Many patients in need of nonurgent but essential surgical care were delayed those services. At the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), we recognized the need to avoid adverse outcomes associated with delaying much-needed cancer, cardiovascular, [...]

Minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery has become the surgical standard for a wide range of procedures due to its benefits in reducing postoperative pain, morbidity and complications, and length of hospital stay.  However, the tools used in laparoscopic surgery to grasp and manipulate tissues often have angular and sharp edges, which can increase the risk of tissue injury and lead to worse patient outcomes.  To address this problem, Insoo Suh, MD, a former Associate Professor of Surgery and Associate Clinical Director of Surgical Innovations at UCSF, developed a novel atraumatic [...]

A research team including Julie Ann Sosa, MD, MA, FACS, Chair of the UCSF Department of Surgery, have published a paper in the journal Thyroid about patient preferences pertaining to surgical options for thyroid cancer. Specifically, the study identifies patient preferences for ascertaining risks and benefits associated with lobectomy vs. total thyroidectomy for low-risk thyroid cancer.  The paper was recommended by faculty at F1000 Prime, a continually updated collection of over 145,000 recommendations of top articles in biology and medicine, contributed by the F1000 Faculty.   Related [...]

The Department of Surgery is pleased to announce that Jessica Gosnell, M.D. has been named Associate Surgery Clerkship Director. Dr. Gosnell is an Associate Professor of Surgery in the Division of General Surgery. Her clinical practice is in endocrine surgery, focused on diseases of the thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal glands, and acute care surgery. In her research, Dr. Gosnell studies new treatments for thyroid cancer through translational work and clinical trials, with a particular focus on multiple endocrine neoplasia and medullary thyroid cancer. Dr. Gosnell earned her BA in Biology [...]

Julie Ann Sosa, MD, MA, FACS (right), Chair of the UCSF Department of Surgery and Leon Goldman, MD, Distinguished Professorship in Surgery, has been awarded a prestigious NIH-FDA R01 Grant as Co-Principal Investigator on a multi-institutional study of medullary thyroid carcinoma. The other PI in the study is Elizabeth Gardner Grubbs, MD, Associate Professor in the Department of Surgical Oncology, Division of Surgery at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. By elucidating the natural history of medullary thyroid cancer and incorporating patient experiences, the investigators [...]

Candidates for thyroid surgery often have concerns about the visible scarring that can result from standard open thyroidectomy. A relatively new technique of endoscopic transoral thyroidectomy pioneered at UCSF leaves little to no trace at the skin level of the major operation performed underneath. Endocrine surgeon Insoo Suh, MD, a surgical pioneer, presents this new approach with case studies from the UCSF Endocrine Surgery & Oncology clinic. Dr. Suh, an assistant professor in the UCSF Department of Surgery, specializes in diseases of the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands.

Yvonne Kelly, MD has been awarded the prestigious Jon Fryer Resident Scientist Scholarship by the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) for 2019-2020. The award was presented at the 2019 American Transplant Congress earlier this month in Boston, Massachusetts. The scholarship is supported by the ASTS Foundation in order to foster innovation and research in the fields of transplantation and transplant immunobiology.   Dr. Kelly is a fourth year general surgery resident at UCSF currently in her first of two professional development years. She is completing her research fellowship in [...]

UCSF Endocrine surgeon Quan-Yang Duh, M.D. was awarded the Oliver Cope Meritorious Achievement Award from the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons (AAES). The ceremony took place at the organization's annual meeting on April 7, 2019. The Cope award is highest honor given by the AAES and has been awarded only nine times in its history. The award was presented to Dr. Duh by another luminary in the field, Orlo Clark, M.D., professor emeritus of surgery at UCSF, and widely recognized as the father of endocrine surgery. Clark was introduced by UCSF endocrine surgeon Wen T. Shen, M.D., [...]

A Thai physician developed the transoral thyroidectomy in 2014 and published an article about it in 2016; since then, the procedure has spread to a handful of medical centers in the United States. To learn how to perform the surgery, Lin reached out to Insoo Suh, MD, a former assistant professor of surgery at University of California-San Francisco, who has completed about 25 of the procedures. She observed Suh perform the surgery at UCSF, then practiced the technique on cadavers. When it came time for Torres' surgery, which took place April 16, Suh guided Lin through it. Robin Cisco, MD, an [...]

Researcher of the Month: Peter Stock, MD, PhD As a pivotal figure in HIV-to-HIV organ transplantation and its legalization through the passage of the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act, transplant surgeon Peter G. Stock, MD., PhD., continues to strive toward breakthroughs in research. While Stock is mostly known for his HIV transplantation work, he has been investigating pancreatic islet transplantation (also known as beta cell replacement) to cure type 1 diabetes since his days as a PhD student at the University of Minnesota. In May, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine [...]

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) awarded $11.08 Million to Dr. Peter Stock at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) to conduct a clinical trial for treatment of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D)... The trial will be using parathyroid glands to aid in the success and viability of the transplant procedure.  Co-transplantation of islets and parathyroid glands, from the same donor, substantially increases beta cell survival, potentially enabling adequate long-term insulin production and removing the need for multiple donors.  Additionally, the co-transplantation will [...]

Treating the overproduction of one hormone may be a way to help a subset of the millions of Americans who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, according to a new study. People with obstructive sleep apnea stop breathing for short periods while they are sleeping, which leads to a poor night's sleep and debilitating fatigue during the day. Most people with the condition need to use dental devices or CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines to sleep at night. But researchers at UC San Francisco have found that treating a condition in the adrenal glands causing an excess of [...]

Insoo Suh, M.D., is a former Assistant Professor of Surgery at UCSF and Co-Founder of Prescient Surgical. After completing a fellowship in endocrine surgery at UCSF, Dr. Suh particiated in the Stanford University Biodesign Innovation Fellowship program in 2011 before joining faculty at UCSF. We sat down with him to learn more about his journey as a physician-innovator. Tell me about a device you're working on and the problem you're trying to address. Laparoscopy and other minimally invasive techniques have revolutionized our field in so many ways, but there definitely still remains room for [...]

UCSF endocrine surgeon Sanziana A. Roman, M.D., FACS, was the organizer of a symposium centered on the experiences of women surgeons from around the world. In an article published in the December 2018 edition of the World Journal of Surgery, seven women surgeons drawn from diverse geographical backgrounds recounted their personal stories told in compelling narratives. Dr. Roman is professor of surgery in the UCSF Division of General Surgery. She also holds the positions of Director of Learning and Teaching in the Procedural Specialties and Dean's Diversity Leader for Leadership Equity and [...]

Julie Ann Sosa, MD, MA, FACS, Leon Goldman, MD, Distinguished Professorship in Surgery and chair of the UCSF Department of Surgery, delivered the 8th Annual Joseph A. Ignatius, MD Lecture in Surgery at Stanford University on October 30, 2018. The topic was "The rise of thyroid cancer and its evolving management: When is less more?" Dr. Sosa is a world-renowned endocrine surgeon with a major focus in thyroid cancer and clinical outcomes research.

2018 AAS TrailblazerAward - Curated tweets by UCSFSurgery

Sanziana A. Roman, M.D., FACS, professor of surgery and Dean's Diversity Leader for Leadership Equity and Inclusion at UCSF, was interviewed by the School of Medicine (SOM) in conjunction with "Global Diversity Awareness Month", October 2018. Differences Matter is a multi-year, multi-faceted School of Medicine initiative designed to make UCSF the most diverse, equitable and inclusive academic medical system in the country. Here is the full interview by Lesley Snyder, originally published on the SOM website: Tell me a bit about your background. I am very thankful for where I am and what I [...]

Insoo Suh, M.D., FACS, assistant professor of endocrine surgery and noted surgical innovator, presented his experiences using "scarless" transoral endoscopic thyroid and parathyroid surgery to a national audience at the 2018 meeting of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons (AAES). Minimally invasive and remote access thyroid surgery has been evolving with the transoral endoscopic thyroidectomy vestibular approach (TOETVA) emerging as a true "scarless" thyroidectomy. Dr. Suh helped pioneer this technique and is among the first surgeons in the U.S. to utililze it.  Dr. Suh also [...]

The Department of Surgery welcomes endocrine surgeon Sanziana A. Roman, M.D., FACS to the faculty as a professor of Surgery in the Section of Endocrine Surgery, Division of General Surgery. Dr. Roman also has been appointed Director of Learning and Teaching in the Procedural Specialties and Dean's Diversity Leader for Leadership Equity and Inclusion in the School of Medicine at UCSF.  Dr. Roman's clinical interest is in endocrine and minimally invasive surgery, with a focus in thyroid and adrenal diseases, including pediatric and adult endocrine tumors. She is one of only a few high-volume [...]

The UCSF Howard C. Naffziger Surgical Society, the alumni society of graduates of the UCSF General Surgery Residency Program and associate members, held its 2018 meeting May 10-11 in San Francisco. Proceedings kicked with a Women in Surgery event at the home of Shelley Marks, the past President of the Society. The Naffziger Day Symposium generated substantive discussion of the history and future of surgical training and practice, while celebrating the common lineage of graduates of the UCSF Department of Surgery. Symposium speakers included UCSF Department of Surgery Chair Julie Ann Sosa, [...]