The Final Covid-19 Grand Rounds: What Have We Learned?

We launched our Covid Grand Rounds series in March 2020. Since that time, we’ve hosted more than 50 Covid sessions featuring more than 100 local and national leaders and have had tens of thousands of live viewers and more than 3 million views on YouTube. For this, our last Medical Grand Rounds of this academic year, it seems appropriate to have this serve as our final Covid Grand Rounds. (When we resume UCSF Medical Grand Rounds in September, we’ll cover Covid as we do other important medical topics, as new developments dictate.)

A Fireside Chat with Lindsey Criswell, Director of NIAMS

Lindsey Criswell, MD, MPH, DSc, was vice chancellor of Research and chief of the UCSF Health Division of Rheumatology before being tapped to lead the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) in February 2021. In this fireside chat with Bob Wachter, she will describe her career journey, which has included roles as a researcher, mentor, and now the leader of a major institute at the NIH. We’ll discuss the most promising developments in rheumatology, the future direction of the NIH, the challenges faced by grant-funded and early career researchers, and the current climate for physician-scientists.

Climbing to New Heights in Lung Transplantation: Surgical & Medical Innovations to Improve Outcomes

Lung transplantation is a complex and lifesaving procedure but one that carries many risks. Over the years, there have been many innovations in transplantation, including changing indications for the procedure, novel strategies to increase transplant rates, and improvements in post-transplant care. At this Grand Rounds we’ll hear from pulmonologist Steve Hays and cardiothoracic surgeon Jasleen Kukreja about how these advancements in the field have helped to optimize patient outcomes at UCSF.

Multimodal Treatment of Obesity: Lifestyle Interventions, Medications, & Bariatric Surgery

When scientists discovered that GLP-1 agonists like semaglutide led to substantial weight loss, the landscape of obesity management changed dramatically. For patients with obesity, the range of treatment options – from lifestyle changes to medication to surgery to combination approaches – can be confusing and daunting. In next week’s Grand Rounds, Jonathan Carter and Diana Thiara will help us navigate the range of therapeutic options for obesity in 2023 and beyond.

Fact Stranger than Fiction: Adventures in the Genomics of Inflammation

Understanding how the complex interplay between genes and environment may lead to autoimmune disorders has contributed to the development of novel therapeutics for these illnesses. Much of this research has used genetic and genomic strategies to study patients with relatively rare inherited disorders of inflammation, such as those seen at the NIH’s Clinical Center. In our yearly Rudi Schmid Lecture, NIH Distinguished Investigator Dan Kastner, MD, PhD, will describe his work on the genetic investigations of autoimmune disease.

Automation, Emotion, and Behavioral Economics in Health and Healthcare

After reading headlines about ChatGPT responding with more empathy than human doctors to clinical questions posed by patients, physicians may wonder how intelligent automation can effectively engage patients, now and in the future. In our annual Holly Smith Lecture, we welcome our Smith Visiting Professor David Asch, MD, MBA, from the University of Pennsylvania. David is one of the nation’s leading experts on behavioral economics and innovation in healthcare. His lecture will explore how automation can be used to help engage patients, as well as the role of behavioral economics and digital innovation in improving health outcomes.