Announcing the Upcoming Retirement of Ken McQuaid as Chief of the Medical Service at the San Francisco VA

Ken McQuaidDear Colleagues:
 
Ken McQuaid, who has done an extraordinary job leading the medical service at the San Francisco VA Health Care System for the past 12 years, has informed me of his plans to step down from his leadership role in 2025. His will be huge shoes to fill.

Ken grew up in a family of eight children in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. (I would say that he is the most celebrated product of his hometown, except the town also produced the Coen brothers, Al Franken, and Tom Friedman.) His father was a newspaper editor, and his mother was a homemaker who later went on to become mayor and state senator. He graduated from Stanford in 1977 and the UCSF School of Medicine in 1981. He completed his residency and chief residency at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis but quickly saw the light and returned to UCSF for his gastroenterology fellowship. He then briefly joined the faculty at UCSD in 1988 before returning to UCSF, once and forever, in 1992 to become endoscopy director at the SFVA.

As a faculty member, Ken quickly established himself as a genuine triple threat. He has authored nearly 100 peer-reviewed publications on GI-related topics, dozens of textbook chapters and, since 2022, has been a co-editor of the popular textbook, Current Medical Diagnosis and Therapy. He has received numerous teaching awards and has been elected to the UCSF Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators and the DOM Council of Master Clinicians. Nationally, he received the Distinguished Clinician Award from the American Gastroenterological Association in 2006 and was president of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy in 2016-17.

Ken became chief of the Division of Gastroenterology at the SF VA in 2007. He was appointed interim medical service chief in 2012 and permanent chief and vice chair of the DOM in 2014. During his time as chief, Ken has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to all our missions, an authentic, low-key leadership style (peppered with dry humor), quietly effective advocacy for his people and their work, and intense concern for the welfare of the patients cared for at the VA. His accomplishments and innovations include the following:

  • He appointed 11 of the 12 current VA division chiefs, a superb, diverse cadre of leaders that includes eight women and four members of underrepresented groups.
     
  • He has nurtured the VA’s research enterprise. Primarily driven by the successes of DOM investigators, the SF VA is the largest recipient of NIH research funding among U.S. VA’s. Our VA research community now includes a fabulous group of young investigators (with seven VA career development and five K awardees) mentored by a highly productive group of senior faculty. He established a Research Council, which has helped in pipeline development, mentoring, and resource allocation.
     
  • The VA’s educational enterprise has achieved near-legendary status, with a collection of clinician-educators who have given our VA a national reputation as a mecca for medical education. Our VA faculty includes 15 Academy of Medical Educators members, 13 Bridges coaches, and recipients of virtually every teaching award that UCSF offers.
     
  • Under Ken’s leadership, clinical care at the VA has also flourished. Fourteen of our currently practicing DOM Master Clinicians are based at the VA. The medical service has received national acclaim for being well ahead of the curve among VA facilities in areas such as telemedicine, women’s and transgender health, structural heart disease, cardiac device surveillance, interventional endoscopy, metabolic bone disease, rheumatologic and inflammatory bowel disorders, HIV care, hematologic malignancies, team-based primary care, and diagnostic excellence. His commitment to “the vets” is unparalleled – in a 2020 newsletter, Ken described the roots of his passion:
     
    My father was a WWII Navy Veteran. My mother-in-law’s first husband was a pilot who was killed on the last day of WWII. I’m named after my ‘Uncle Kenny,’ who died in Africa shortly after the war, and my younger brother is a 20-year Army Veteran who fought in the Gulf War. We treat the Veterans as if they were our own family – because they are.

All these impressive achievements were made possible by the culture that Ken created. The Net Promoter Scores (NPS) for our VA faculty on “place to work” are the highest in our department, despite the not-inconsiderable bureaucratic challenges of working at the VA. (He has often said that growing up in a large, competitive family with limited space and financial resources helped him hone the skills he needed as a service leader.) He worked to enhance the sense of community through a whimsical newsletter, a winter holiday party for faculty and families, a spring gathering of educators and departing chief residents at Ken’s home, and a leadership book club. With the assistance of a highly effective “Change Committee,” the medical service has become significantly more diverse and inclusive.

I have learned a lot from watching Ken’s leadership. He has a remarkable ability to prize everyone’s contribution, manage the (periodically divergent) interests of UCSF and the VA, and create a warm, welcoming environment where fantastic people want to work. Many of his faculty have gone out of their way to tell me how Ken’s mentorship and allyship helped them in their careers.

In collaboration with the VA leadership, we will launch a national search for Ken’s successor as chief this month. The search will be co-chaired by Ken Covinsky, professor in our Division of Geriatrics, and Thea Mauro, professor of Dermatology and VA deputy chief of staff. I am confident we will identify an outstanding leader for this crucial role. Ken has not finalized his future professional plans, though he has firmed up plans to spend more time with his family, including his wife of 42 years (Rosemary), his two children, and his four grandchildren.

Please join me in thanking Ken McQuaid for his extraordinary service to UCSF and our department, particularly his leadership at the VA. It is an understatement to say that Ken’s tenure has been transformative – he has left indelible marks on our organizations and our people. We wish him only the best in the next chapter of his career and life.  
 
 

Bob Wachter

Chair, Dept. of Medicine