Message From the Chair
UCSF is in a major growth spurt, the likes of which I have not seen in my three decades at this institution.
As I write this, UCSF is in contract to complete the purchase of St. Mary’s Hospital and St. Francis Hospital. The purchase is expected to become final in the next few months. There are days when UCSF is completely full, with no ability to admit additional patients, and the addition of these two hospitals will allow much needed additional capacity.
In August, the new Bayfront Building at Mission Bay will open. The building is just down the street from Chase Center, home of the Golden State Warriors. Bayfront will have an OHNS ambulatory office on the fourth floor and 16 ORs on the second floor, with limited overnight stay capability. In addition, two more ambulatory surgery centers will open within the next year – one at the Berkeley Outpatient Center and one in Burlingame – and OHNS will have a presence at both centers. Adding to the institution’s growth is a new hospital at the Parnassus campus. We have broken ground for the new hospital, which should open in 2030. Needless to say, we are very excited about this clinical growth.
The department has welcomed Tyler Crosby, MD, to the Laryngology Division and Song Cheng, MD, to the Otology/Neurotology Division. This summer, Nikki Jiam, MD, will return to UCSF in the Otology/Neurotology Division, and Kara Brodie, MD, will return to the Pediatric OHNS Division. Also this summer, Ilya Likhterov, MD, will join our head and neck oncologic surgery and reconstruction team.
As we greet new faculty, we celebrate our enduring stars. This summer we will have a festschrift to honor Christoph Schreiner, MD, PhD, who is retiring after about 40 years at UCSF. Christoph’s accomplishments as director of the Coleman Laboratory are premiere in the field of discovery in auditory central processing. We are looking forward to the many scientists who will return to UCSF to help honor and celebrate Christoph’s legendary career. And we look forward to recruiting the next leader in neuroscience to take on this legacy of discovery.
It is a point of pride to observe how the leadership characteristics of our faculty are being recognized among our professional organizations. Clark Rosen, MD, just completed his term as President of the ALA. Andy Goldberg, MD, is President of the Triological Society, and it is worth noting that the Trio just had its best year ever with regard to recruitment.
The recognition continues with the induction of VyVy Young, MD, into the prestigious UCSF Academy of Medical Educators. Charles Limb, MD, has been chosen for the 2024 Stibitz-Wilson Award from the American Computer and Robotics Museum in recognition of contributions to cochlear implantation and music perception. And our PGY-3 resident, Taylor Erickson, MD, has been appointed to the OHNS Residency Review Committee of the ACGME.
In the domain of publications, Daniel Knott, MD, Jolie Chang, MD, and Megan Durr, MD, currently serve on the Editorial Board of Laryngoscope. Patrick Ha, MD, is now Editor-in-Chief of Head and Neck. And Clark Rosen, MD, Patrick Ha, MD, and Charles Limb, MD, edited the newly published 6th edition of Bailey’s Head and Neck Surgery-Otolaryngology.
While numbers don’t tell the whole story, they are nonetheless impressive: The UCSF School of Medicine is again ranked #1 in NIH funding for a school of medicine, and the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery is ranked #7 for a department of OHNS in the most recent (2023) funding tally. I should point out that the UCSF School of Medicine has been ranked #1 for nearly two decades. These rankings don’t include funding outside of the NIH, so the tally doesn’t even include Dylan Chan, PhD, MD, who has approximately $6 million in support from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). But it's not about the numbers; it’s about the impact, and Dylan’s work in detecting and treating early childhood hearing loss is making a huge difference in our community and in our region.
Finally, this year’s Sooy graduation event is June 14-15, and we are pleased to have as our guest speaker Sydney Butts, MD, Interim Chair at SUNY Downstate. Her lecture should be enlightening, and I hope you can come by to hear her.
Warmly,
Andrew H. Murr, MD, FACS
Professor and Chair
UCSF Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery