UCSF Health

10/20/2025

Happy National to our pharmacists and technicians! This dedicated team makes sure our patients receive safe and effective medications every day of the year! 🎉

10/18/2025

Please send Charaighn your best wishes — she’s doing well after finishing her chemo for breast cancer!

In November 2024, after a normal mammogram in her hometown of Clovis, Charaighn opted to do a follow-up MRI because she has dense breast tissue and a family history of breast cancer.

Unfortunately, the testing revealed a type of breast cancer called invasive ductal carcinoma, and she decided to have a double mastectomy at a local hospital, due to her family history. Charaighn’s cancer also turned out to be HR2-positive, suggesting it was aggressive, so her doctor suggested immediate chemotherapy.

A friend recommended UCSF oncologist Dr. Natalie Marshall, and Charaighn began chemo at our Berkeley Infusion Center in early 2025. Friends and family came together to drive Charaighn to her appointments, after a traffic accident left her car-less. Charaighn finished her 12 weeks of chemo and will continue with monoclonal antibody infusions until January.

To pass time during her chemo treatments, Charaighn took up crocheting! She has become passionate about the new hobby and even made beautiful flower bouquets for her care team during Nurses’ Week! Charaighn is also an avid runner and plans to run the San Diego Rock n’ Roll Marathon in May 2026! “My daughters will be there to cheer me on,” she says.

10/14/2025

Congratulations to the 40 nurses who graduated from our six-month Nurse Residency Program this fall and are officially joining the UCSF Health team! From a fun mini award ceremony—complete with party hats and trophies—to nurses walking the red carpet to receive their certificates, it was such a joyful celebration!

10/07/2025

We're proud to be among the first health systems in the Bay Area to bring histotripsy to patients with primary or metastatic liver tumors!
In June, we began offering the zero-radiation procedure, which uses high-frequency focused ultrasound waves to destroy liver tumors.
It’s precise, noninvasive and offers new hope for patients with certain liver cancers visible on ultrasound.
More about histotripsy at UCSF: https://ucsfh.org/3IAuZlL

10/04/2025

Please cheer on Mary — she’s stable and enjoying time with family after surgery to remove a brain tumor and several strokes!
In September 2018, Mary’s speech became garbled after she returned from an extended trip to Portugal, where she has family. Her daughter, Darlene, was concerned, and an emergency MRI with Mary’s doctor in the Central Valley revealed a very large tumor shaped like a banana on the left side of her brain.
That same month, Mary came to UCSF for an 11-hour surgery with Dr. Mitchel Berger and Dr. Shawn Hervey-Jumper, who were able to remove 80% of the grade 4 astrocytoma, an aggressive, cancerous brain tumor.
Unfortunately, even though Mary’s surgery was successful, she experienced two strokes soon after and several more in 2021.
Mary has passed the five-year milestone for brain cancer survivors and is doing well overall but still struggles with short-term memory loss. She enjoys spending time with her family, especially her grandchildren.
With doctor approval, she was thrilled to return to Portugal in 2022 to see her nephew get married! Darlene cares for her mother and is an active participant in our Brain Tumor Caregiver Support Group!

09/29/2025

Thank you for visiting our Parnassus hospital, former San Francisco Giants pitcher Dave Dravecky and his wife, Jan! Dave pitched for the Giants in the 1980s but had to leave the sport after losing his pitching arm to cancer. His story touched many of our patients who are fighting serious illnesses of their own. Dave brought smiles and joy to everyone he visited! ⚾

09/25/2025

Please send MJ your best wishes — she's recovering well after an exciting new diabetes treatment at our hospital! MJ has lived with type 1 diabetes for 44 years, and our transplant team is hoping the therapy will eventually help her stop taking insulin.
Last month, MJ had an “islet transplant” with surgeon Dr. Andrew Posselt as part of a clinical trial, with islets created in a lab from stem cells. Islets are clusters of insulin-producing cells, which the surgeon transplants into the recipient’s liver to spur natural insulin production.
Traditionally, these types of transplants used islets from a deceased donor, but the new therapy could open the treatment to more people with diabetes, since it’s produced in a lab — meaning the patient doesn’t have to wait for a donor to become available.
MJ is a horse-riding instructor who looks forward to returning to Pilates and yoga as soon as she is strong enough.
“I am hoping that one day soon, I won’t have to worry about my diabetes anymore,” she says.
More about the novel treatment ➡️ https://ucsfh.org/3VycwZP

09/19/2025

Please send Ken your best wishes – he’s doing great 10 years after receiving a kidney from his wife, Claudia!
While in college, Ken received an upsetting diagnosis: Berger’s disease, a condition can cause inflammation and damage the kidneys. Despite his diagnosis, Ken was able to work and race dirt bikes. Unfortunately, his kidney function continued to worsen, and he began peritoneal dialysis in 2013.
Several months later, he went on a date with his future wife, Claudia, who worked as a labor and delivery nurse at UCSF.
Five weeks after the couple met, Ken had a heart attack, requiring a triple bypass surgery, and Claudia remained by his side. She decided to get tested to see if she was a match for a living donor kidney transplant and learned that she was!
In September 2015, Dr. Nancy Ascher performed a successful transplant surgery! Ken recalls waking up from surgery and seeing Claudia. “It was one of the most beautiful pictures I’ve ever seen,” he says. “This beautiful woman gave me the gift of life.”
A year after the transplant, Ken was happy to race his first motocross race again! He and Claudia still love spending time, especially traveling to Bodega Bay and the rest of the California coast in their RV together.

09/17/2025

We're proud to rank among the nation’s top hospitals for patient care for the fourth consecutive year, according to healthcare performance company Vizient, Inc.! Thank you to our outstanding care teams for making this achievement possible! 👏

UCSF Health has been recognized as a top performer in the 2025 Bernard A. Birnbaum, MD, Quality Leadership Ranking by Vizient, Inc., one of the nation’s largest provider-driven health care performance improvement companies. UCSF Health has received this honor for four consecutive years.

09/13/2025

Please send Patricia your best wishes — she's recovering well after brain surgery for Moyamoya disease! A lifelong migraine sufferer, Patricia also began experiencing dizziness and fainting spells, but her local doctors were stumped.
Luckily, Patricia’s daughter, Shonté is a neuroscientist and urged her to have an MRI and CT scans, and the results led to a diagnosis from her doctor: Moyamoya disease. Moyamoya is a rare condition in which blood vessels supplying the brain become narrowed or blocked. “If it wasn’t for my daughter I wouldn’t be here,” Patricia says.
After her diagnosis, Patricia traveled to UCSF from Sacramento and met with neurosurgeon Dr. Luis Savastano, who found she’d had several minor strokes. In March of this year, Patricia had the first of two revascularization surgeries with Dr. Savastano to bypass the blocked arteries. The surgery took six hours and was a success!
Despite having some headaches during recovery, Patricia is now doing great! She loves spending time with her family and playing golf. Post-surgery, she volunteered at the Ladies Professional Golf Association tournament in Texas and recently traveled to Paris!

09/06/2025

Please send Rob your best wishes — he’s doing well after multiple surgeries, organ transplants, and major health challenges since he was a small child!
Rob has had several surgeries at our hospital; the first was a liver transplant in 1990 as a toddler, due to a rare condition called biliary atresia. Unfortunately, the medications to support his liver transplant caused kidney damage, and he ended up having a kidney transplant in Florida 10 years ago, with his father as the donor.
In 2021, Rob began having cardiac problems, and he returned to UCSF for open heart surgery with Dr. Marko Boskovski to repair an ascending aortic aneurysm. Then last year he began experiencing shortness of breath, and testing revealed a leaky valve in his heart. Last December, Rob had a second heart surgery with Dr. Boskovski to insert a mechanical valve.
Unfortunately, Rob experienced several strokes in the hospital and went to an acute rehab unit in his hometown of Santa Rosa to help regain movement on the left side of his body.
Rob continues to work hard on his recovery and is eager to return to his work as a NASCAR videographer. He also recently celebrated his daughter’s 9th birthday!
Through it all, Rob has kept one person close to his heart: the unknown child whose liver saved his life 35 years ago. When Rob crossed the stage at his college graduation, he pointed to the sky, thinking of his donor.
"There is someone out there who lost a child," Rob says. "Through life, I feel like I’m carrying them in a way... I’m here because of you. I never forget them.”

08/29/2025

Congratulations to our Cardiac Surgery team on its second Total Artificial Heart procedure! Our patient, Martell, is recovering well and already walking the halls at our Parnassus hospital! 👏 👏👏
Total Artificial Heart is a device that temporarily supports function on both sides of the heart, while patients with heart failure wait for a heart transplant. Only a small number of centers in the world do this surgery!