Kimberly H. Allison, MD

Professor of Pathology

Vice Chair of Education

Dr. Allison is the first Vice Chair of Education at Stanford Pathology and an internationally recognized expert in breast pathology.  She has served as the Program Director for the Stanford Pathology Residency Program and directs a specialized Breast Pathology Fellowship.  Her academic interests are focused on the development of high-quality education and diagnostic standards, and she is active in setting practice guidelines in diagnostic testing relating to breast cancer.  She is on the editorial board for the 5th edition of the WHO Classification of Tumours of the Breast, is co-chair of the ASCO/CAP ER/PR Testing in Breast Cancer committee, was on the steering committee for the 2018 ASCO/CAP HER2 Testing Guidelines Update, and serves as the sole pathologist on the NCCN Breast Cancer Treatment Guidelines committee.

She earned a B.A. from Princeton University in Molecular Biology, an M.D. from New York Medical College, and certification in anatomical and clinical pathology from the American Board of Pathology.  Her residency and fellowship training were completed at the University of Washington Medical Center with fellowship training focused in breast/gyn pathology. 

Dr. Allison has also experienced “the other side of the microscope” as a breast cancer patient which inspired her to publish her memoir, “Red Sunshine,” and to advocate for public awareness of pathology’s role in cancer care. 

Dr. Allison is a popular invited speaker, with talks and courses offered to a wide spectrum of audiences in pathology, medicine, and the general public.  

Outside of work, she is both supported and entertained by her husband and three teenage children.  Her household also includes two dogs, five chickens, one bearded dragon and one parakeet.  She enjoys hiking in the redwoods in nearby Wunderlich Park, attempting to be creative in art (oil, acrylic and mixed media painting) and being a sports fan.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: Creation of an interactive online curriculum platform for pathology education

Traditional pathology resident education consists of didactic lectures, microscope-based sessions and the apprentice style learning that takes place when a trainee is rotating on a given subspecialty service and is assigned cases to workup.  This learning can feel disjointed since didactic material is on an annual schedule for the entire group of learners and not tailored to the specific clinical trainee level or rotation.  With the transition to largely Zoom-based didactic lectures, these have become less interactive and lower-yield for both the educator and the learner.  Because beginning pathology residents are not traditionally prepared by medical school for the entirely new skillset of interpreting histology, they are typically unclear where to begin on their clinical rotations, which can lead to professional dissatisfaction until more mastery of the material occurs.  In addition, clinical case work is random and can leave gaps in exposure to specific pathology entities if they did not happen to be encountered while on clinical rotations.  A curriculum more tailored to both the trainee level and the topic of interest could provide a more personalized learning experience to better prepare trainees for their clinical work.

This strategic initiative will focus on building online learning resources for a unique, interactive, on-demand, self-paced Stanford Anatomic Pathology training that may replace or augment didactic lecture content.  Since Stanford Pathology has an entirely digitally scanned whole slide image platform for clinical cases, online case-based material is available to integrate into this resource.  A pilot curriculum of online interactive content for 2-3 specific subspecialty topics will be the initial goal of this initiative.  If successful, this model could be expanded beyond pathology residency to provide pathology education modules for medical students, more advanced clinical fellows, CME courses or even patient education.  Existing education resource curation structures, such as the Pathology Trainee Resource Committee, will be utilized as well as a new teaching case submission system to help continuously create and curate content.

Shipra Arya, MD, SM

Assistant Professor, Surgery

Section Chief of Vascular Surgery at VA Palo Alto Healthcare System (VAPAHCS)

Shipra Arya, MD, SM, is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Section Chief of Vascular Surgery at VA Palo Alto Healthcare System (VAPAHCS).  She has a master’s degree in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health with focus on research methodology and cardiovascular epidemiology.  She completed her General Surgery Residency at Creighton University Medical Center, followed by a Vascular Surgery Fellowship at University of Michigan.  She has been funded by American Heart Association (AHA), NIH/NIA GEMSSTAR grant, VA Palo Alto Center for Innovation and Implementation (Ci2i), and is currently funded by VA HSR&D for a multicenter stepped wedge cluster randomized clinical trial called “PAtient-centered mUltidiSciplinary Care for vEterans Undergoing Surgery (PAUSE) trial”.  Her current work focuses on streamlining frailty evaluation, as well as implementation of patient and system level interventions to improve surgical quality and to provide high-value and patient centered care.

She has multiple administrative roles in surgical quality improvement as Director of Surgical Quality at VAPAHCS; Center director for Stanford University in the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI); and the Associate Medical Director of the Northern California region for VQI, which is the national registry database and patient safety organization for Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS).  Her involvement in SVS VQI also extends to being a member of the steering committee of the Vascular Implant Surveillance and Interventional Outcomes Network (VISION) to improve the quality, safety and effectiveness of vascular care.  She also serves as the President of the Surgical Outcomes Club, a national organization of surgical health services researchers, and chairs multiple national committees: VA surgeons committee for the SVS and Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the Association of VA surgeons.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: 

Background: One third of all patients aged 65-85 will undergo a surgical procedure within the last year of life.  For some, surgery confers improved survival and quality of life.  For others, surgery may lead to unplanned hospitalizations, complications and institutionalization and earlier death.  Therefore, it is imperative to identify patients at greatest risk for adverse surgical outcomes and provide tailored clinical care to mitigate these risks.  Consequently, the concept of frailty is being recognized to identify at-risk or vulnerable surgical patients.

Frailty is a syndrome of reduced physiologic reserve associated with higher postoperative mortality and adverse outcomes.  For the highest risk patients, 6-month mortality after even minor surgical procedures is 30-50%.  Our preliminary work shows that institution-wide frailty screening reduces 6-month mortality from 25% to 8%--a 3-fold survival advantage by introducing a “pre-surgical pause” and involving clinical stakeholders.  Multidisciplinary care models for complex patients are highly effective in oncology, wound care, and primary care.  In these models, instead of patients seeking multiple specialists, experts come together in a structured manner to discuss best course of action to improve clinical and quality outcomes while providing patient-centered care.

SI objective: We aim to develop a new Frailty Screening and Preoperative Optimization Pathway (FS-POP) to identify high risk patients and develop a multidisciplinary workflow for optimization and improving outcomes.  The new care delivery model will leverage EHR and clinical staff to do frailty screening in surgical clinics using the validated Risk Analysis Index (RAI) and set up a referral pathway to the APOP clinic (Anesthesia preoperative optimization program) for frail patients (RAI>36).  Experts from diverse fields (i.e. surgery, anesthesia, geriatrics, palliative care, case management, rehabilitation, and nutrition) will contribute to surgical decision-making and optimization of outcomes for high-risk patients.  We will measure 30-day mortality, morbidity, rehospitalization, and length of stay as our clinical outcomes, and frailty screening and APOP referral rates as process outcomes.  The workflow will be first tested and implemented in vascular surgery clinics and then deployed to all surgical clinics in the Department of Surgery.

Ami S. Bhatt, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Medicine and Genetics

Ami Bhatt is an Associate Professor at Stanford University in the Departments of Medicine (Hematology; Blood & Marrow Transplantation) and Genetics.  A physician scientist with a strong interest in microbial genomics and metagenomics, she received her MD and PhD from the University of California, San Francisco, followed by residency and fellowship training at Harvard Medical School.  She joined the faculty at Stanford University in 2014 after completing a post-doctoral fellowship focused on genomics at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Prof. Bhatt has received multiple awards including the Chen Award of Excellence from the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO), the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Paul Allen Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation Fellowship; she is also an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation.  Her team’s research program seeks to illuminate the interplay between the microbial environment and host/clinical factors in human diseases.  Her translational laboratory develops and applies novel molecular and computational tools to study strain level dynamics of the microbiome, to understand how microbial genomes change over time and predict the functional output of microbiomes.  She is keenly interested to understand how microbes “talk” to one another and to host cells, and to leverage this understanding to improve health and treat diseases.  She has also worked collaboratively to mine microbial enzymes from mobile genetic elements and develop these as genome editing/engineering tools.

In addition to carrying out research at Stanford University, Prof. Bhatt has active collaborations world-wide including in Nigeria and South Africa.  She is committed to ensuring that advances in research touch the lives of individuals in all income settings – and thus, in her spare time, enjoys volunteering for the nonprofit she co-founded, Global Oncology, and serves as the Director for Global Oncology for Stanford’s Center for Innovation in Global Health.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: 

Medical breakthroughs, including the application of bacteria-derived gene editing for sickle cell disease to the development of targeted antibody-based therapies that can cure B-cell malignancies, have been developed at Stanford University.  These examples, and many more, represent some of the best of what Stanford Medicine has to offer – bringing basic science to the pre-clinical realm, and then onward to clinical research and eventually clinical care.

Stanford is optimally organized to continue to produce such life-saving innovations: the university is home to outstanding basic science research in the life sciences and a burgeoning and cutting-edge clinical program in internal medicine.  Both the main Stanford hospital and many internal medicine subspecialty services are housed on a single campus that is shared with basic science researchers.  Thus, Stanford has an outstanding opportunity to facilitate cross-cutting research that leverages these complementary strengths.  Furthermore, campus-wide initiatives such as ChEM-H and the Stanford Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA) are well-positioned to support investigator-initiated studies that bridge medicine and basic science research.  Despite these structural advantages, the proportion of faculty involved in these types of bridging collaborations is smaller than would be ideal.

To date, many research collaborations have formed on an ad hoc basis – while successful, these collaborations rely on serendipity to bring partners together.  Newer members of the Stanford community are often not well enough networked to identify such opportunities.  Furthermore, the extensive responsibilities that Stanford faculty have (both at the University/Hospital and at the National and International level) means that finding the extra bandwidth necessary to initiate and nourish new collaborations can be challenging.  This initiative aims to address these challenges by building bridges between physicians in specific clinical divisions and disease-relevant basic and pre-clinical scientists with the goal of improving patient-focused research.  Specifically, this three-pronged initiative will bring scientists and clinicians in two Department of Medicine subspecialties together to (a) build a sense of broader community and belonging, (b) identify areas of cross collaboration and shared interest, and (c) support the launching of specific, novel research initiatives with seed funds either from existing resources (e.g., ChEM-H, Stanford IMA) or department/division-specific funds.  The long-term goal of this effort is to create a structure that helps initiate, grow, and sustain translational science in the Department of Medicine.

Robert T. Chang, MD

Associate Professor of Ophthalmology

Professor Chang is a medical innovator at Stanford University since 2009. He is a funded clinician scientist with a lab organizing Stanford’s Glaucoma Registry and Biorepository, looking for new disease biomarkers and developing treatment predictive analytics.  His clinical practice concentrates on minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) and presbyopia-correcting cataract surgery with an emphasis on data-driven precision medicine.

Dr. Chang is the Glaucoma Fellowship Co-Director and trained educator in medical entrepreneurship from design thinking and implementation science perspectives.  One of his early licensed co-inventions was the first universal smartphone adaptor to take pictures of the front and back of the eye. He is also the Medical Director of Stanford Employer-Based Optometry and has completed the Biodesign Faculty Fellowship Program as well as the Stanford Leadership Development Program.  He has traveled extensively, training ophthalmologists around the globe, and serves as an advisor to multiple companies.

He received his MD from the combined BA/MD program at the University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Medicine, and completed his residency at the prestigious Washington University in St. Louis, followed by a research and clinical glaucoma fellowship at the renowned Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami.  He has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers, has delivered several hundred invited national and international lectures, and holds multiple patents.

Outside of work, he enjoys time with family, playing basketball/tennis, reviewing restaurants (5000+), and trying all things tech related.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: 

Stanford Hospital and Clinics (SHC) runs the Improvement Capability Development Program (ICDP) to promote value-focused care.  However, many quality improvement projects related to efficiency lack enough data regarding SHC funds flow -- more specific collections and attributable operating expenses.  One of our highest volume procedures is cataract surgery at the Byers Eye Institute where the workflow involves both clinic and OR equipment from different budgets.  Currently, it is difficult to schedule all the surgical cases smoothly from preop-testing, insurance clearance, paperwork from upstairs clinic to downstairs OR, and case scheduling, which is the topic of our ICDP program this year.  Other elements that also add to cost and inefficiency include and are not limited to: timely inventory ordering, monitoring of both clinic and OR unused/damaged/old equipment, and generation of waste.  If there were more transparency with Byers-specific automated metrics created to track cataract cases and tally profits and losses over time, there would be more opportunities for simultaneous value-focused improvements and waste reduction.

I propose modeling a lean high-volume cataract surgical workflow alongside the typical lower-volume complex teaching cases, with a goal to maximize efficiency in both.  A comparison will be made with orthopedic surgical workflow at Stanford Main and Redwood City versus the higher-volume Stanford ValleyCare satellite ASC.

Key deliverables of this strategic initiative (SI) comparing efficiency at Byers Eye versus Livermore ASC will include identifying regulatory and non-regulatory elements driving cost and/or inefficiency, assessing opportunities to change and streamline supplies and staffing, and experimenting with software automation of inventory/case tracking/finances to optimize the missions of both value-focused clinical care and teaching.

Jennifer Y. Lee, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery 

Clinic Chief of Adult Otolaryngology

Dr. Lee is a board-certified ear, nose, and throat specialist in the diagnosis and treatment of conditions affecting the head and neck.  She is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine.

She provides comprehensive, compassionate care for patients with a wide range of conditions.  They include perforated ear drum, thyroid nodules, sinusitis, and salivary gland tumors.  She has received praise from patients about her knowledge and ability to communicate clearly, as well as her thoroughness, kindness, and sensitivity.  She also has received regional and national recognition for her innovations in the management of dysfunctions of the Eustachian tube. 

Dr. Lee serves as the medical director of the Stanford Health Care adult otolaryngology service line.  Within the department, she oversees five divisions and approximately thirty providers in three locations.  This role has helped foster her dedication to quality improvement and to communication between team members to help improve outcomes for the patients in their care.

Dr. Lee’s research has focuses on outcomes of patient care relating to dilatory and patulous dysfunction of the Eustachian tube.  

She helps to educate the specialists of the future in her field by leading the Stanford otolaryngology residency training program in simulation education.  Her goals are to improve patient outcomes as well as establish the foundation for how doctors lead teams through otolaryngology emergencies. 

Away from her clinical practice, teaching, and research, she enjoys time with her family, cooking, and walking in beautiful California.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: Bridge to Clinic Future

Academic medicine has supported the balance of the tripartite mission: research, patient care, teaching.  Patient care in the ambulatory or outpatient settings of clinics has more volume and revenue than inpatient care.  The management of these operations often falls within the purview of nurses and business managers.  Stanford has long supported the structure of a dyadic partnership between doctors and nurses to oversee the clinical operations of different service lines and departments. 

My proposal is to expand the roles of the dyadic partners to improve patient access, staff and physician engagement, and wellness.  I seek to implement three different projects within Otolaryngology for the ultimate vision of being a liaison between Stanford School of Medicine (SoM) and Healthcare (SHC) for a unified Stanford Medicine.  The first project involves lean processes across three existing sites to create uniformity of services that allows providers ease of practice and patient consistent quality of care.  The second project involves creating and testing a prediction model of resources needed to expand and activate two additional areas in partnership with University Healthcare Alliance (UHA).  The third project involves pilots of the optimal partnership of Advance Practice Providers with physicians in the impending changes of rules around Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to optimize revenue while maintaining patient satisfaction and provider wellness.

These projects involve coordination of many important individuals and groups to communicate in collaboration for a common goal of engaging physicians, nurses, managers, and patients in a meaningful way.

Linda Anh Nguyen, MD

Professor of Medicine (GI & Hepatology) 

Vice Chief of Ambulatory Gastrointestinal Services

Dr. Linda Nguyen is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and Clinic Chief in the Digestive Health Center.  Dr. Nguyen completed medical school at UCLA School of Medicine and GI fellowship training at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, CA.

Her clinical and research interests include GI motility disorders and disorders of gut brain interaction, with an emphasis on gastroparesis, functional dyspepsia and chronic abdominal pain.  She was a member of the NIH/NIDDK Gastroparesis Clinical Research Consortium from 2007-2016.  Her current research includes identifying biomarkers to better diagnose motility disorders, understanding the role/impact of physiologic testing on clinical care, exploring novel therapies for gastroparesis, and expanding the role of neuromodulation in the treatment of GI motility disorders and pain.  She is also passionate about quality of life, professional development, and physician wellness.

Dr. Nguyen has served on and chaired numerous Abstract Review Committees and two ad-hoc committees for the National Academy of Science (IOM).  She currently serves as a member of the American Gastroenterology Association Research Awards Panel and Councilor for the AGA Neurogastroenterology and Motility section and American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society (ANMS) Council and Chair of the Membership, Mentoring, Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: Digital Referral Coach for Improving Patient Access and Health Care Utilization

Problem: In a study of insurance claims from 2016-2018, it was estimated that digestive diseases affected 24% of the population.  Of the top 10 leading causes of digestive disorders, 50% involved a functional GI disorder(s), which is estimated to impact 40% of the population worldwide.  Given the high prevalence of GI disorders, the supply of clinicians has not been able to meet the demands of patient referrals.  Despite growth of the faculty practice by 146% percent over the past 10 years, the average wait times for a new patient consultation continue to range between 40-72 days. 

The treatment paradigm for these conditions when the symptoms are mild, include making a clinical diagnosis with limited testing, providing reassurance, patient education, and dietary and lifestyle modifications.  Diagnostic and treatment algorithms endorsed by GI societies exist.  These guidelines have been incorporated into “Primary Care Pathways” by various organizations; however, the rates of implementation have been low, resulting in unnecessary referrals for consultation and endoscopies. 

Strategic Initiative: The goal of the strategic initiative is to develop a digitally driven platform to guide PCPs in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with mild to moderate functional GI disorders prior to referring to a GI specialist for consultation or endoscopy.  The platform will also provide a checklist of symptoms & findings that would warrant an early referral.  In addition to providing diagnostic and treatment algorithms, this digital platform will include resources to help PCPs manage their patients, such as educational material (for clinicians and patients) and links to commercially available nutrition and behavioral health digital health programs that are already available for patient use.

For patients who do not respond to initial therapies and require a referral, PCPs will receive guidance on which tests to order prior to the initial consultation in order to have a more effective appointment with the consulting gastroenterologists.  These testing suggestions will be made based on current clinical guidelines and determination of the most common tests ordered at an initial appointment.

The goal outcome of this initiative is to empower PCPs to diagnose and care for patients with digestive disorders in order to improve the quality of care, decrease patient suffering while waiting for an appointment, decrease unnecessary healthcare utilization, and improve access for patients who do require a gastroenterology consultation.

Kathleen Poston, MD

Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Chief of Movement Disorders Division

Dr. Poston is a clinician scientist and the Edward F. and Irene Thiele Pimley Professor in Neurology and Neurological Sciences.  Her research and clinical emphasis are to understand the motor and non-motor impairments, such as dementia, that develop in patients with alpha-synuclein and tau pathologies, such as Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body dementia, Multiple System Atrophy, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, and Corticobasal Syndrome.  Her lab uses functional and structural imaging biomarkers, along with biological and genetic biomarkers, to understand the underlying pathophysiology associated with these motor and non-motor symptoms.  Given her dual interests in movement disorders and dementia, she also holds an appointment in the Memory Disorders division and is a founding member of the Stanford Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.  She has over 80 peer-reviewed research publications and is funded by the NIH, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons Research, and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation.  She is the Co-Director for the Stanford Lewy Body Dementia Association Research Center of Excellence and Directs the Sue Berghoff LBD Research Fellowship.  She is  assistant editor at Annals of Neurology and associate editor at Movement Disorders.

Dr. Poston received her Bachelor's of Science in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, her Master's Degree in Biomedical Engineering and her MD at Vanderbilt University.  She completed her Neurology residency training at UCSF where she was co-chief resident and she completed a fellowship in clinical Movement Disorders at Columbia University and post-doctoral research fellowship in Functional Neuroimaging at the Feinstein Institute.  As a former competitive synchronized swimmer, a formally trained bioengineer, and now a professed non-motor movement disorders specialist, Dr. Poston continues her passion for integrating across traditional disciplines to create unique opportunities.  She has been at Stanford since 2009 and her favorite Bay Area perk is being able to swim outdoors year-round.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: Development of a Lewy Body Disease Initiative that integrates across basic, translational, and clinical research

My Strategic Initiative (SI) is to create an integrated Lewy body disease program among basic scientists, translational scientists, clinical scientists, and clinical providers across the School of Medicine and the broader Stanford University community.  Lewy body disease, which includes Parkinson’s disease and Dementia with Lewy bodies, is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the aging population and one of the most common causes of dementia.  Patients suffer from a devastating combination of motor impairment, cognitive decline, and behavioral changes.  The impact on human health is vast and currently available treatments are inadequate.  As an international leader in neuroscience research, Stanford is poised to be at the forefront of new discoveries that evolve into new treatments for Lewy body disease patients.  However, the current basic science efforts are mostly siloed from the clinical research, and the clinical providers have too few opportunities to partner with and support most research efforts.  Truly developing impactful discoveries will require connecting and integrating these valuable Stanford resources.  Thus, the goal of my SI is to develop a mechanism for sustained collaboration between all faculty at Stanford dedicated to Lewy body diseases.

Central to this SI is developing a core of deeply phenotyped Lewy body disease research participants within the Stanford Movement Disorders Center, including individuals traditionally underrepresented in Lewy body disease research.  Participants will be clinically characterized using a variety of biomarkers, including plasma and CSF biofluids for proteomics and metabolomics, gut microbiome, and advanced neuroimaging with MRI and PET.  The data and biosamples from this exceptionally well characterized cohort will then provide the foundation for multidisciplinary clinical and basic science faculty to come together in collaboration with a shared goal to advance meaningful breakthroughs that lead to therapies in Lewy body disease patients.

This initiative will compliment other large, ongoing neurodegenerative programs within the Department of Neurology and the Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute.  Specifically, we will work closely with leadership from the Iqbal Farrukh and Asad Jamal Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) to harmonize research assessments in Lewy body disease patients with ongoing ADRC protocols, so that investigators can leverage data and biosamples from both programs.  In addition, this SI will interface with the Knight Initiative in Brain Resilience, a cross-disciplinary scientific endeavor aimed at addressing neurodegeneration, aging and brain resilience that is anchored in the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and the Office of the Dean of Research.  Finally, expertise and engagement from clinical faculty will be critical to the SI success, both for characterizing the vast heterogeneity of symptoms experienced by Lewy body disease patients, but also for guiding the research questions most impactful to patients.

Lisa Rogo-Gupta, MD

Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Dr. Rogo-Gupta is the Associate Director of Gynecology and Gynecologic Specialties, Medical Director of Ambulatory Gynecology, Director of Urogynecology resident education, and Well-Being Director for the department of Ob/Gyn.  Dr. Rogo-Gupta proudly joined Stanford in 2013, having completed residency at Columbia University and fellowship in Female Urology and Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she also completed the NIH K30 Graduate Research Training Program.  She previously directed course OBGYN 304A for sub-interns and was the Director of Urogynecology at the Pelvic Health Center.  In her current roles, Dr. Rogo-Gupta seeks to incorporate physician well-being into strategic decisions impacting all parts of the academic mission – clinical care, research and education.  She is particularly proud of efforts focused at improving access to gynecologic specialties care, adoption of digital health, establishing interdisciplinary team-based education, improving patient experience and physician experience in clinical efficiency.  Under her leadership, ambulatory gynecology has been awarded recognition for being one of the TOP 10 patient experience drives across the Stanford Enterprise in February 2021, as well as multiple awards for exceeding patient satisfaction targets.

Dr. Rogo-Gupta has a particular clinical interest in a multi-disciplinary approach to women’s healthcare and her research interests include surgery outcomes on institutional and national levels and quality improvement.  Her work has been published in 37 peer-reviewed articles, 4 invited articles, 62 national meeting posters and presentations, and 7 book chapters, and has been nationally recognized by the American Board of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Journal of Urology, and Urology Practice Journal.  Dr. Rogo-Gupta is passionate about teaching and mentoring and has received numerous awards throughout her career, and has given 28 lectures locally and abroad.

Dr Rogo-Gupta is a native Californian who enjoys spending time outdoors year-round with her husband and two daughters.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: To develop and implement an evidence-based Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinician Educator recruitment practice.

Background: The School of Medicine (SOM) Clinician Educator (CE) position is defined by engagement in clinical care, teaching, administrative and/or scholarly activities that advance clinical medicine.  Positions are opened by programmatic need and recruitment is not subject to the requirements outlined for other faculty positions.  With an overall trend of increasing number of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ObGyn) CEs, the opportunity arises to standardize the recruitment process.

The ObGyn department mission is to improve health through innovative and compassionate care, education, advocacy and discovery.  We participate in SOM and hospital programs which together weave our mission across all divisions and areas of clinical practice.  These broad efforts require us to identify and hire individuals who will engage in our priority areas and as a result, our department composition has shifted to a majority CEs.  This shift has occurred alongside the development of novel clinical programs, evolution in medical education, leadership in Quality Improvement, development of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Well Being programs, and the formation of departmental research infrastructure.  With this change comes the need to re-evaluate how we recruit the optimal ObGyn CE candidates.

Key drivers identified include: 1) Universal understanding of CE roles and responsibilities; 2) Unification of processes across clinical divisions; 3) Strategic planning aligned with active recruitment processes; 4) Coordination of recruitment, development, promotion and retention efforts.

Potential interventions include: 1) Provide faculty development training for CE recruiters (leaders and mentors); 2) Incorporate SOM CE recruitment goals into ObGyn process; 3) Promote transparency across recruitment personnel; 4) Review and analyze aggregate recruitment, promotion and exit data. These interventions will occur with input from members of the Office of Academic Affairs, Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, other SOM clinical departments, and in collaboration with ObGyn Vice Chairs of Education and Advancement/Promotion.

Michael J. Rosen, MD

Professor of Pediatrics

Director of the Center for Pediatric IBD & Celiac Disease

Dr. Rosen is a pediatric gastroenterologist and physician scientist, who has been devoted to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) research since beginning medical training over 20 years ago.  He is the inaugural Stanford University Endowed Professor for Pediatric IBD & Celiac Disease and serves as Director of the Stanford Medicine Center for Pediatric IBD and Celiac Disease.  He has expertise crossing mucosal immunology and epithelial biology, formal training and experience in clinical and translational investigation, and direct insight regarding the important clinical challenges caring for children with complicated IBD.  His translational research program focuses on how the immune system regulates epithelial function in chronic intestinal inflammation as it relates to IBD.  His clinical research program focuses on optimization of anti-TNF therapy in pediatric IBD.

Work by Dr. Rosen’s NIH-funded laboratory has demonstrated a protective role for type 2 cytokines in chronic intestinal inflammation, and their association with superior outcomes in pediatric ulcerative colitis.  His team has advanced organoid-immune cell in vitro co-culture systems to understand how immune cells interact with the intestinal epithelium, and are studying colon organoids from patients with ulcerative colitis to understand the epithelial pathogenesis of the disease.  Dr. Rosen also led the multicenter study Anti-TNF for Refractory Colitis in Hospitalized Children (ARCH) Study and is Co-PI for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundations Cohort for Pediatric Translational and Clinical Research in IBD (CAPTURE IBD) and Co-Chair of the PRO-KIIDS Pediatric IBD clinical research network.

After graduating from Duke University, Dr. Rosen attended Harvard Medical School, followed by pediatrics residency at Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center.  He did his pediatric gastroenterology fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he received a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation.  He started his faculty career at Vanderbilt, and then moved to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where he became Medical Director of the Schubert Martin IBD Center and Associate Director for Faculty Development in the Gastroenterology division.  

Dr. Rosen was excited to move to the Bay Area with his wife and two children to join the Stanford faculty in 2021.  Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with his children at their sporting events, watching movies with his family, skiing, and just getting outside. 

Strategic Initiative Abstract: Elevating Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patient Outcomes throughout Stanford Children’s Health

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an incurable disease caused by damaging inflammation of the intestinal tract.  One quarter of patients with IBD are diagnosed in childhood and at least 65,000 children in the US suffer from IBD.  Patients can suffer from chronic abdominal pain, bloody diarrhea, and fatigue, and the disease can be complicated by stunted growth, weak bones, intestinal blockage or perforation, anemia, and mental health problems.  Thankfully, there are a growing number of effective treatments that can eliminate symptoms, restore quality of life, prevent complications, and even heal the bowel.  We know that variability in care leads to suboptimal health outcomes across populations.  Standardizing best practices such that all patients receive appropriate therapy targeted to eliminating symptoms and inducing bowel healing will ensure the best outcomes for the largest number of children.  I direct the Stanford Medicine Center for Pediatric IBD and Celiac Disease, which was launched in 2022 with the support of a transformative philanthropic gift.  The Center will integrate state-of-the-art clinical care with cross-cutting innovative research to uplift children with IBD and Celiac disease.  A major goal of the Center is to achieve world-leading patient outcomes.

My Strategic Initiative is to engage pediatric gastroenterologists across Stanford Children’s Health (SCH) practices in improvement science and collaborative learning to optimize pediatric IBD care and elevate patient outcomes.  SCH providers care for nearly 700 children with IBD within two distinct practice organizations, the Faculty Practice Organization (FPO) and Packard Children’s Health Alliance (PCHA).  PCHA is comprised of four distinct pediatric gastroenterology practices across the San Francisco Bay Area.  The initiative will require coordinated engagement of multiple cross-organizational stakeholders including faculty in the Department of Pediatrics practicing in the FPO, PCHA leadership and providers, SCH analytics leadership and staff, and the ImproveCareNow (ICN) international pediatric IBD collaborative learning network.  The goal will be to create a sustaining system that maintains the number of pediatric IBD patients in disease remission above 80%. 

Elevating care and outcomes across a heterogeneous health care system will require intersecting and complementary approaches.  We will develop health care informatic dashboards to identify care gaps and track progress.  Through engagement with leaders and providers, we will learn about needs and barriers to bridging care gaps.  We will garner consensus around best practices care algorithms and develop performance reporting tools.  Interventions will be implemented through plan-do-study-act cycles.  We will incorporate outside learnings from the ICN international collaborative and share our own with other ICN centers.  Through this initiative, we will advance the wellbeing of children with IBD across the Bay Area and establish Stanford Children’s Health as a leading Center for pediatric IBD clinical care.

Daniel Rubin, MD

Professor of Biomedical Data Science and Radiology

Dr. Rubin is Director of Biomedical Informatics for the Stanford Cancer Institute and Director of the Scholarly Concentration in Informatics and Data-Driven Medicine.  He is a Radiologist and data scientist.  His NIH-funded research program focuses on artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine with emphasis on quantitative imaging, integrating images with clinical data, and mining these Big Data to discover imaging phenotypes that can predict disease biology, define disease subtypes, and personalize treatment.  A particular interest of his lab is leveraging the real-world evidence embedded within electronic medical records data through the use of natural language processing and AI methods for discovery, to guide care, and to enable post-marketing surveillance.

Some of his lab’s key contributions include discovering quantitative imaging phenotypes in radiology, pathology, and ophthalmology images that identify novel clinical subtypes of diseases such as glioblastoma, age-related macular degeneration, and solid tumors that help to determine treatments and improve clinical outcomes.

Dr. Rubin is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and Distinguished Investigator in the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging.  He has published over 350 peer-reviewed scientific paper and pending patents on 10 inventions.  He particularly enjoys his role as a mentor to students at all levels, from high school to post-doctoral fellows.

Dr. Rubin grew up in Los Angeles and completed undergraduate, medical school, Radiology residency training, and graduate school at Stanford.  He lives in Palo Alto with his wife and in his spare time enjoys classical music, photography, and cooking.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: 

Each year, students in the early stages of their training need to identify potential faculty to become their research mentors.  Given that there are 14 different programs in the biosciences at Stanford and hundreds of faculty whose research spans a huge range of fields, it is currently challenging for students to identify potential research mentors.

Stanford's Academic Profiles System (CAP) has information on over 18,000 faculty and trainees, but it lacks functionality to match trainees to potential mentors for research rotations.  Users can browse profiles by school or institute, or search by name or topic, but there is no indication of which faculty are willing to serve as mentors.  Moreover, presently it is not possible to track whether or not the research rotations were successful, and how they might be improved in the future.

In this Strategic Initiative (SI), I will develop a system to enable trainees to identify faculty who share research interests and who may be suitable research mentors.  The system will be built by extending the existing CAP platform to include structured data fields and constrained search using those data fields.  The structured searchable data will include domain of expertise, mentoring experience, and opportunities for mentoring mentees, as well as other information that will help mentees locate suitable mentors.

Challenges to pursuing this SI include adoption by mentors and mentees, usage by all mentors to collect the requisite data describing their research interests and laboratory environment, resources to support the proposed developments, making the community aware of the system, establishing metrics for evaluating success of the system, and collecting feedback from users to improve the system.  We will tackle the challenges by undertaking the following activities: (1) the CAP system is already well known to the Stanford community, and we build on this robust platform in undertaking our work; (2) we will partner with the School of Medicine that currently supports the CAP platform to undertake the developments needed to create and maintain our system; (3) we will undertake outreach activities to make the community aware of our system; (4) we will establish metrics that indicate success of our system, such as number of faculty and trainee users, the number of research rotations undertaken as a result of using our system, and user satisfaction; (5) we will provide capability of the system to capture ongoing user feedback; and (6) we will explore making future extensions to the system to improve its utility.

Joshua Salomon, PhD

Professor of Health Policy

Associate Chair for Academic Affairs and Strategy

Joshua Salomon is a Professor of Health Policy and a Senior Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.  His research focuses on public health policy and priority-setting, within three main substantive areas: (1) modeling patterns and trends in major causes of global mortality and disease burden; (2) evaluation of health interventions and policies; and (3) measurement and valuation of health outcomes.

Dr. Salomon is an investigator on projects funded by the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, relating to modeling of infectious and chronic diseases and associated intervention strategies; methods for economic evaluation of public health programs; measurement of the global burden of disease; and assessment of the potential impact and cost effectiveness of new health technologies.

He is Director of the Prevention Policy Modeling Lab, which is a multi-institution research consortium that conducts health and economic modeling relating to infectious disease.  Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, Dr. Salomon was Professor of Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

He lives in Palo Alto with his wife and two daughters, and enjoys spending time outdoors with his family, cooking, and building furniture.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: Building a policy translation platform to accelerate the impact of Stanford Health Policy

The Department of Health Policy at Stanford aims to improve health at population scale, by advancing interdisciplinary research and education that drives policy solutions to the inter-related challenges of health equity, access, effectiveness, quality and cost.  Stanford Health Policy assembles expertise in health economics, decision science, health services research, outcomes research, global health, health law, and data science and biostatistics to address complex problems in public health and healthcare.  A critical element needed to achieve this mission is the capacity to translate policy research into policy solutions.  Toward that end, the goal of this Strategic Initiative will be to build a policy translation platform in the Department of Health Policy to accelerate the impact of our work.  

The policy translation platform will include four key components: 

(1) New staff resources, including an Executive Director and specialists in scientific communication 

(2) Internal and external engagements spanning academia, government, and public and private sector entities in public health and healthcare, and including community partnerships

(3) A series of regular convening activities with focus on policy translation, including a Stanford Health Policy symposium, and other workshops, events and collaborations with professional and policy organizations

(4) New information products, including a Stanford Health Policy Brief series

Julia Fridman Simard, ScD

Associate Professor of Epidemiology & Population Health

Julia Fridman Simard, ScD, is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology & Population Health, and, by courtesy, of Medicine in Immunology and Rheumatology at Stanford. She received a Master’s degree in Epidemiology and a Doctorate of Science at the Harvard School of Public Health, which included training in the Section of Clinical Sciences, Division of Rheumatology, Immunology, and Allergy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  In 2008, Dr. Simard moved to Sweden for a Clinical Epidemiology Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and transitioned to junior faculty in their Clinical Epidemiology Unit in 2011.  While there Dr. Simard initiated a national register linkage to examine the utility of registers in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) research and develop an extensive data repository for future epidemiologic investigations which has been instrumental in multiple NIH-funded studies.

Dr. Simard is a clinical epidemiologist focused on two clinical areas: rheumatic autoimmune disease, and reproductive and perinatal outcomes.  She is currently leading a large study of hydroxychloroquine in lupus pregnancy leveraging mixed methods in partnership with qualitative researchers, patients, clinicians, and epidemiologists in Sweden, Canada, and in the United States.  Her methodologic work focuses on misclassification, including misclassification of preeclampsia phenotype in large databases as well as investigating how misclassification, missed opportunities, and misdiagnosis contribute to disparities in complex conditions such as systemic lupus.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: 

My SMLA Strategic Initiative (SI) aims to bring investigators and resources together to support the training of postdoctoral fellows, clinical fellows, and graduate students in reproductive and perinatal epidemiology and clinical research.  Stanford Medicine has a vast network of clinicians and scientists investigating perinatal and reproductive risks and outcomes through molecular and population-based lenses.  Research and resources are spread across the School of Medicine and University, with several large institutes and organizations funding research, facilitating collaboration, and making important strides in research and clinical care.  The Department of Epidemiology and Population Health (DEPH) currently offers MS and PhD degrees, along with certificates in clinical research and epidemiology, a co-terminal MS for undergraduates, and is a popular scholarly concentration among medical students.  

The first objective is to develop a curriculum in DEPH including a multi-disciplinary seminar of reproductive and perinatal science including topics around ethics, immunology, clinical issues, informatics, and epidemiologic research, and a separate methodologic course on reproductive and perinatal epidemiology.  Together with electives already offered throughout Stanford, we will develop a new area of concentration in the MS and PhD program.  This will support the second objective, to develop and secure funding for a NIH-funded training program that will bring together a network of expertise and talent.  This SI involves not only the curricular development, but also ultimately aims to connect stakeholders throughout numerous clinical and basic science departments and to identify opportunities for collaboration and integration of rigorous training, mentorship, with the hopes of training future generations and supporting transdisciplinary research and development.

Shreyas Vasanawala, MD, PhD

Professor of Radiology

Division Chief of Pediatric Radiology

Shreyas Vasanawala, MD/PhD, the William R. Brody Professor of Pediatric Radiology and Child Health, serves as Radiologist-in-Chief for Stanford Children’s Health and Chief of Pediatric Radiology at Stanford University.  After completing undergraduate studies in mathematics at the California Institute of Technology, he pursued a medical degree and doctorate in biophysics at Stanford University, where his studies led to a resurgence of signal efficient methods in magnetic resonance imaging.  After a surgical internship, a residency in radiology, and a fellowship in pediatric radiology, Dr. Vasanawala joined the faculty at Stanford University.  He then focused on building the MRI programs at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and at Stanford Hospital and Clinics and building the Division of Body MRI.

He leads a multidisciplinary research group focused on developing fast and quantitative pediatric medical imaging methods.  The group’s efforts include development of new medical imaging hardware, new pediatric-friendly image acquisition methods, novel image reconstruction approaches, and unique strategies to image analysis.  These endeavors have led to the first routine clinical translational deployment of high density pediatric specific MRI receiver coils, the first routine clinical use of innovative compressive sensing and deep learning medical image reconstruction methods, and the routine ability to obtain high resolution pediatric images with reduced anesthesia.  Together, these efforts, and those of other pediatric radiology faculty, have contributed to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford becoming a leading pediatric MRI program internationally.  With over 150 peer-reviewed publications and 25 patents, he has developed a deep collaborative network within Stanford and beyond.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: 

Background: Stanford is uniquely poised to transform pediatric medical imaging, with co-location of expert subspecialized pediatric radiologists and leading scientists and engineers.  At the same time, pediatric radiology faculty have become disconnected from the Stanford mission and urgently need a renewed sense of professional purpose.

Goal:  Enable faculty engagement and rapid translation of pediatric imaging developments into the clinic.

Strategy:  Create a center of pediatric imaging innovation and clinical translation the greatly facilitates collaborations and care of patients at Stanford Children’s.  Key components and tasks that will be required are: formation of an advisory board; formation of a steering committee; recruitment of a medical director; recruitment of a scientific director; and establishment of a program endowment to provide sustainable resources for coordinators, translational infrastructure, project management, events, trainee mentoring, and seed funding.  Within 18 months, the center should house several projects that engage multiple faculty, particularly clinician educators. 

Jody Vogel, MD

Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine

Vice Chair for Academic Affairs

Dr. Vogel is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University.  Dr. Vogel is a first-generation college graduate and obtained a Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan.  Her experiences as a medical social worker led her to a career in medicine.  She obtained a Doctor of Medicine from Wayne State University School of Medicine, graduating with Distinction in Biomedical Research.  She completed emergency medicine residency training at Denver Health Medical Center, serving as chief resident from 2010-2011.  Following residency, Dr. Vogel completed a clinical research fellowship at the Denver Health Medical Center and obtained a Master of Science in Epidemiology from the Colorado School of Public Health. 

Dr. Vogel has a dedicated interest in underserved, at-risk populations and has devoted herself to investigations to improve the delivery of acute care across the healthcare system.  She is an active health services researcher with numerous publications.  Dr. Vogel’s investigations have been supported by the Emergency Medicine Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.  Dr. Vogel has been a long-standing leader in national academic emergency medicine organizations including currently serving as elected Member-at-Large on the Board of Directors of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: Enhancing Diversity within the Biomedical Research Workforce at Stanford University

In 2018, Provost Persis Drell set forth ambitious goals in the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in a Learning Environment initiative, including diversity of thought, experience, approach, and identity in all aspects of our education and research missions.  This Strategic Initiative will help to further those goals by developing a structured approach to engaging individuals with diverse backgrounds in the research mission at Stanford University. 

Diversity enhances innovation in biomedical sciences.  However, aspiring investigators underrepresented in science often encounter challenges to joining the biomedical workforce.  Due to the lack of research workforce diversity, in 1989, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiated diversity supplements to provide research opportunities for individuals underrepresented in science.  Unfortunately, there has been limited uptake of the supplements with less than 5% of Research Project Grants (R01) nationally incorporating a supplement.  Reasons for the limited utilization of the supplements may include lack of researcher knowledge and difficulty identifying candidate trainees.

The immediate goal of this initiative is to enhance the diversity of our biomedical workforce through increased utilization of NIH diversity supplements.  The broader long-term goal is to foster diversity of thought in education and research through engagement of a diverse biomedical workforce and cultivation of cross-disciplinary research opportunities within our academic community as a whole.

The aims of the initiative include (1) evaluate current utilization of NIH diversity supplements; (2) determine barriers to and mediators of diversity supplement success; (3) develop novel approaches to identify and engage candidate trainees and mentors to increase utilization of diversity supplements as part of the broader goal to enhance diversity within the biomedical workforce; (4) develop and implement robust curricula for supplement recipients to enhance their knowledgebase and skills thereby increasing their competitiveness for future, independent grant support; and (5) develop a mechanism for tracking diversity supplement applications and trainee successes to evaluate the impact of our program.  To complete this initiative, we will leverage expertise within multidisciplinary research teams and broadly engage key stakeholders across the Stanford University campus.

Amy Yu, PhD

Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology

Dr. Yu was born and raised in Taiwan.  She came to United States to pursue her Ph.D. in Biomedical Physics at UCLA and completed her medical therapy residency at Stanford. 

Dr. Yu is a medical physicist providing clinical services in the Department of Radiation Oncology.  With the increasing technical complexity of modern radiotherapy, her mission is to pursue the clinical implementation of novel treatment techniques to improve the quality and safety of radiation treatment to our patients.  Academically, she has been working on translational research projects to address future clinical needs which led to several publications and awarded patents.  She trusts that cohesion of research with the advancement of patient care represents the paradigm of work for a clinical educator. 

Dr. Yu views education as the groundwork for future medical physicists.  A well-structured medical physics residency program will train next generation physicists to become academic leaders.  She believes that such an education does not rely solely on textbook knowledge, but also on bridging the theory with clinical work.  One of the most satisfying aspects of academic physics is the opportunity to teach and mentor promising future colleagues and leaders in our field.

Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, baking, and archery.  A fun fact: she won the Second Place Archery Competition in the Youth Olympics.

Strategic Initiative Abstract: Toward technical resource equity in radiation therapy for Stanford cancer patients

Radiation therapy is a multidisciplinary cancer treatment which involves various specialty areas with complementary skills and a wide range of technology.  A medical physicist’s role is to oversee the use of these technologies and skills; ensuring the technology is used safely and efficiently in order to achieve clinical end goals.  The Stanford Radiation Oncology program has been rapidly expanding to multiple locations in recent years, and as a result, there exists a disparity in availability and utilization of technologies and skills.  The goal of this Strategic Initiative project is to standardize the available Radiation therapy technologies, maximize the capacity, and identify, correct and foresee any underutilization.  During the process, a relationship will be established between different entities across the department to review new technology and budget to ensure we can provide high standard care.  A standard will be built based on input from each Stanford cancer center.  As a result, patients will receive the same level of high-quality personalized care regardless of their place of residence, reducing travel time and patient stress, both psychologically and financially.

There are three phases for this project:

Phase 1: Establish the baseline and standard of care for radiation therapy treatment across all Stanford Radiation Oncology Sites.

Phase 2: Establish the relationship between different entities and identify means and direction of transfer of technology and expertise.

Phase 3: Establish DevOps processes to consistently improve and raise the standard of care to meet the baseline established in phase I.