Chair's Corner

I arrived at UCSF to start my internship 33 years ago last month. (A word of warning to those who think you can actually plan your life: I had every intention of returning to the East Coast after three years, plans that were quickly – and happily – derailed.) Recognizing, of course, that our memories tend to airbrush out the exhausting and painful parts of residency training, I can tell you that I still get a special thrill watching the arrival of a new crop of interns.

The Department of Medicine has been my professional home for more than 30 years. Yet it is only in the last eight months, as interim chair, that I have gotten a window into the department’s true scope and magnificence. These months have also given me a deeper appreciation of the challenges the department faces.

Physicians should be a happy lot. We do fulfilling work. We are trusted and admired by society. Our unemployment rate is negligible. We are reasonably well compensated. We have TV shows written about us.

The practice of medicine is undergoing several revolutionary changes. Perhaps the two largest are the growing pressure to provide high value care and the digital transformation of healthcare.

In the last few months, we've learned of the deaths of four of our most cherished colleagues, and the serious illness of another. Together, they remind us of the impact that individuals can make, even in a large, complex organization like UCSF.