Fatima Karaki, MD
MSP Physician
Fatima Karaki, M.D., is an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, Department of Medicine. She obtained her medical degree from the University of Michigan and completed her internship and residency at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Karaki cares for adult inpatients on the hospital medicine service and resident inpatient service at San Francisco General Hospital.
Dr. Karaki is the founder and director of the Refugee and Asylum seeker Health Initiative (RAHI) at UCSF, which fosters academic activity, research, education, advocacy, and community awareness in refugee health. Her academic and clinical interest is in refugee and asylum seeker health, with a focus on the Syrian refugee crisis in the Middle East. She is a founding member and board member of the North American Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers (NASRHP) and co-chair of its Research Committee.
Dr. Karaki collaborates with national and international experts to advance refugee health research and education in order to improve the quality of refugee healthcare. She has provided emergency medical relief to patients in refugee camps and slums throughout Europe, the Middle East and India. She has volunteered and performed research in Beirut, Lebanon; Lesvos, Greece; and along the Balkan route in Europe, in the context of the Syrian refugee crisis. She has also worked and done research in the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh. She developed and directed the first graduate level course in refugee health at UCSF.
Dr. Karaki is passionate about clinical teaching, diversity in medicine, and physician well-being. She has taught Social and Behavioral Sciences, Foundations of Patient Care, and serves as a Clinical Microsystems Clerkship preceptor in the Bridges curriculum, in addition to teaching on inpatient wards. Her work includes developing novel programs to increase physician well-being and caregiver support at UCSF, and she serves as a Schwartz rounds steering committee member at ZSFG.