Catherine Lau, MD

Professor of Clinical Medicine

Catherine Lau is a Professor of Clinical Medicine at UCSF and a member of the Division of Hospital Medicine since 2009. She currently serves as the Director of Caring Wisely at UCSF Health where she focuses her efforts in redesigning and innovating systems of care at UCSF Health to improve quality, safety, value, and the patient experience. Catherine is also the Co-Director for Health Systems Improvement in the Clinical Microsystems Clerkship in the UCSF School of Medicine where she co-leads an experiential curricula for pre-clinical medical students to gain meaningful experiences in health systems improvement and A3 problem solving. Catherine serves as a UCSF School of Medicine Bridges curriculum coach, where she closely works with medical students in teaching them systems improvement skills, clinical reasoning, the patient interview, and the hypothesis-driven physical exam, while assisting them with career exploration advice. Lastly, Catherine currently serves as the Director for Recruitment and Hiring for the Division of Hospital Medicine that now has over 100 academic and clinical faculty.

Catherine is the recipient of the UCSF School of Medicine Excellence in Teaching for Clinical Faculty Award in 2022 and the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators Excellence in Teaching Award in 2023. Catherine was inducted as a member of the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators in 2024.

Catherine obtained her undergraduate degree with departmental honors from Stanford University in 2002 and received her M.D. at New York University in 2006, where she was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha and was awarded the AMWA Glasgow-Rubin Award for Excellence in Academics and Professionalism. She completed her medical residency training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA before joining the Division of Hospital Medicine at UCSF in August 2009.

Catherine is the former medical director of the Nighttime Hospitalist Service, former Director for Patient Safety and Quality in the Department of Neurological Surgery, and former Director for Quality and Safety in the Division of Hospital Medicine.

Publications

  1. Lau CY, Rawson NSB. Is Canada Moving towards a More Agile Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement Process with a Shifting Role for Real-World Evidence (RWE) for Oncology Drugs? Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) 2024. PMID: 39330042


  2. Bazinski M, Lau C, Clemons B, Purser L, Kangwankij A, Ngo L, Lang M, Besen B, Gross K, Borucki A, Behrends M, Miaskowski C, Schell-Chaple H. The Development and Implementation of the Fast-Pace Assessment Framework and Tiered Analgesic Orders for Opioid Optimization. Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses 2024. PMID: 38522974


  3. Lau CY. A big leap in prescription drug promotion in Canada. The journal of family health care 2024. PMID: 38333596


  4. Bongiovanni T, Pletcher MJ, Lau C, Robinson A, Lancaster E, Zhang L, Behrends M, Wick E, Auerbach A. A behavioral intervention to promote use of multimodal pain medication for hospitalized patients: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of hospital medicine 2023. PMID: 37357367


  5. LaHue SC, Maselli J, Rogers S, Casatta J, Chao J, Croci R, Gonzales R, Holt B, Josephson SA, Lama S, Lau C, McCulloch C, Newman JC, Terrelonge M, Yeager J, Douglas VC. Outcomes Following Implementation of a Hospital-Wide, Multicomponent Delirium Care Pathway. Journal of hospital medicine 2021. PMID: 34197303


  6. Iverson NR, Lau CY, Abe-Jones Y, Fang MC, Kangelaris KN, Prasad P, Shah SJ, Najafi N. Evaluation of a novel metric for personalized opioid prescribing after hospitalization. PloS one 2020. PMID: 33382802


  7. Lau CY, Seymann G, Imershein S, Amin A, Afsarmanesh N, Uppington J, Aledia A, Pretanvil S, Wilson B, Wong J, Varma J, Boggan J, Hsu FPK, Carter B, Berger M, Harrison JD. UC Care Check-A Postoperative Neurosurgery Operating Room Checklist: An Interrupted Time Series Study. Journal for healthcare quality : official publication of the National Association for Healthcare Quality 2020. PMID: 31977363


  8. Harrison JD, Seymann G, Imershein S, Amin A, Afsarmanesh N, Uppington J, Aledia A, Pretanvil S, Wilson B, Wong J, Varma J, Boggan J, Hsu FPK, Carter B, Martin N, Berger M, Lau CY. The Impact of Unmet Communication and Education Needs on Neurosurgical Patient and Caregiver Experiences of Care: A Qualitative Exploratory Analysis. World neurosurgery 2018. PMID: 30471444


  9. Magill ST, Wang DD, Rutledge WC, Lau D, Berger MS, Sankaran S, Lau CY, Imershein SG. Changing Operating Room Culture: Implementation of a Postoperative Debrief and Improved Safety Culture. World neurosurgery 2017. PMID: 28843757


  10. Gonzales R, Moriates C, Lau C, Valencia V, Imershein S, Rajkomar A, Prasad P, Boscardin C, Grady D, Johnston S. Caring Wisely: A Program to Support Frontline Clinicians and Staff in Improving Healthcare Delivery and Reducing Costs. Journal of hospital medicine 2017. PMID: 28786434


  11. Birk HS, Han SJ, Rolston JD, Rowland NC, Lau C, Theodosopoulos PV, McDermott MW. Resident-led Implementation of a Standardized Handoff System to Facilitate Transfer of Postoperative Neurosurgical Patients to the ICU. Cureus 2016. PMID: 26929888


  12. Han SJ, Rolston JD, Zygourakis CC, Sun MZ, McDermott MW, Lau CY, Aghi MK. Preventing Delays in First-Case Starts on the Neurosurgery Service: A Resident-Led Initiative at an Academic Institution. Journal of surgical education 2016. PMID: 26774935


  13. Lau CY. Quality improvement tools and processes. Neurosurgery clinics of North America 2015. PMID: 25771273


  14. Han SJ, Rolston JD, Lau CY, Berger MS. Improving patient safety in neurologic surgery. Neurosurgery clinics of North America 2014. PMID: 25771269


  15. Rolston JD, Zygourakis CC, Han SJ, Lau CY, Berger MS, Parsa AT. Medical errors in neurosurgery. Surgical neurology international 2014. PMID: 25371849


  16. Berger MS, Wachter RM, Greysen SR, Lau CY. Changing our culture to advance patient safety: the 2013 AANS Presidential Address. Journal of neurosurgery 2013. PMID: 24289847


  17. Rolston JD, Han SJ, Lau CY, Berger MS, Parsa AT. Frequency and predictors of complications in neurological surgery: national trends from 2006 to 2011. Journal of neurosurgery 2013. PMID: 24266542


  18. Han SJ, Saigal R, Rolston JD, Cheng JS, Lau CY, Mistry RI, McDermott MW, Berger MS. Targeted reduction in neurosurgical laboratory utilization: resident-led effort at a single academic institution. Journal of neurosurgery 2013. PMID: 24125592


  19. Lau CY, Greysen SR, Mistry RI, Han SJ, Mummaneni PV, Berger MS. Creating a culture of safety within operative neurosurgery: the design and implementation of a perioperative safety video. Neurosurgical focus 2012. PMID: 23116098


  20. Haber LA, Lau CY, Sharpe BA, Arora VM, Farnan JM, Ranji SR. Effects of increased overnight supervision on resident education, decision-making, and autonomy. Journal of hospital medicine 2012. PMID: 22865395