Program Leadership

Rebecca Berman, MD, FACP | [email protected]
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Rebecca Berman is our program director for the Internal Medicine Residency program. After completing her chief residency at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, she joined Mass General Hospital, where she built a network of student-faculty primary care practices, the Crimson Care Collaborative (CCC). Over 1000 Harvard Medical students have participated in CCC gaining early exposure to primary care, to care for the underserved and interprofessional education opportunities. In 2013, Dr. Berman returned to BWH to direct its primary care residency program. To help reduce pay disparities and improve diversity in medical leadership positions,  she teaches nationally on negotiation skills for physicians. Other areas of interest include novel curricular design, health literacy and care for the underserved.

Joan Addington-White, MD, FACP | [email protected]

Joanie Addington-White MD is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH). She is the Program Director of the San Francisco General Primary Care Track. She went to Medical School at the University of Chicago and completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Northwestern University. Before assuming her responsibilities at UCSF, Joanie was a faculty member in the Division of General Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, where she started and served as the Program Director of the Internal Medicine Primary Care Track Residency. She is passionate about practicing medicine in both the inpatient and outpatient settings, complex medical issues, care of the patient with a history of incarceration, and HIV primary care. Dr Addington-White teaches about health equity, general internal medicine, and focuses on creating a curriculum and program which attracts and mentors a diverse group of residents. She leads the Health Equity pathway for the Internal Medicine residency. 

Ryan Laponis, MD, MS, FACH | [email protected]

Ryan Laponis is Program Director for the Primary Care/General Internal Medicine (UCPC-GIM) Residency.  After completing residency in UCPC-GIM, he served as Chief Resident of Ambulatory Medicine. As a faculty member in the Division of General Medicine he has served as Associate Program Director of the UCPC-GIM Residency as well as Educational Site Director at the Mount Zion General Medicine Clinic.  As an educator, he is a member of UCSF's Academy of Medical Educators supporting faculty in building their teaching skills in UCSF's Center for Faculty Educators and nationally is a faculty member in the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Teaching Educators Across the Continuum of Healthcare (TEACH) program mentoring and sponsoring future educational leaders.  Equally passionate about improving relationships in healthcare, he teaches and has led educational programs in relationship-centered communication nationally as Fellow in the Academy of Communication in Healthcare. 

Daniel Wheeler, MD | [email protected]

Daniel Wheeler is an Associate Program Director and hospitalist at the San Francisco VA. Originally from the suburbs of Minneapolis, Dr. Wheeler earned his medical degree at the University of Minnesota, and completed his residency and chief residency at UCSF. He began his post-residency career at the University of Minnesota, where he served as chair of the residency curriculum committee. In 2018, he received the residency program’s Faculty Teacher of the Year award.

Now back at UCSF, Dr. Wheeler helps lead our work in feedback and evaluation, quality improvement, and chief resident professional development. His other academic interests include communication, coaching, and clinical reasoning — all guided by an overarching passion for the clinical learning environment.

Bryn Boslett, MD | [email protected]

Bryn Boslett is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of the 360 Wellness Center, a medical home for patients impacted by HIV. She also served as Medical Director for Ambulatory COVID Response for UCSF Health over the past year. Bryn received her undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh and her MD from Temple University. She completed internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital before moving to UCSF to complete fellowship in Infectious Diseases, during which time she served as a chief fellow and completed the Health Professions Education Pathway. She is an active primary care physician and preceptor of residents and fellows in both ambulatory and inpatient settings. She has been a Bridges coach in the Clinical Microsystems Clerkship since 2016, providing direct teaching and mentoring to students in the School of Medicine. She has also served as a career mentor to many junior faculty, fellows, and residents, and helped to develop a unique clinician educator track for the ID fellowship. For her efforts, she received the Excellence and Innovation in Graduate Medical Education Award in 2015, and a UCSF Exceptional Physician Award in 2020. Dr. Boslett recently gave birth to her second child (sweet baby Eva!) and will be joining the residency team fully in September. 

Sarah Goglin, MD | [email protected]

Sarah Goglin specializes in rheumatology, with a clinical focus on lupus and the systemic vasculitides. She joined UCSF in 2009 and currently practices at the UCSF Rheumatology Faculty Practice, as well as in the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Rheumatology clinic. She attends on the inpatient rheumatology consultation service at the Moffitt-Long Hospital.

Educational Interests:
She is very involved in many aspects of medical education at UCSF. Her primary leadership roles include serving as an assistant program director for the Internal Medicine Residency and as clerkship director for the Clinical Immersion.

Sarah Alba-Nguyen, MD, MPH | [email protected]

Sarah Alba-Nguyen is the Director of GME Diversity and an Assistant Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency. She divides her time between clinical, educational, and administrative roles.

Clinically, Sarah works as a hospitalist where she attends on the Medicine Teaching Service, Goldman Medicine Service, and both Parnassus and Mission Bay Medicine Consult Services. In her graduate medical education roles, Sarah has led a robust efforts in the residency program to enhance the recruitment, retention, and mentorship of trainees from diverse backgrounds. She is passionate about equity and inclusion in medicine, and conducts seminars for trainees and faculty on topics of unconscious bias, microaggressions, stereotype threat, and mentoring across differences. In 2018, Sarah joined Dr. Alicia Fernandez as a core faculty members in the newly-funded UCSF Latinx Center of Excellence (LCOE). Within the LCOE, Sarah co-leads academic career development and mentorship programs for Latinx and UIM medical student and residents at UCSF.

Megha Garg, MD, MPH | [email protected]

Dr. Garg is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and Associate Chief of Hospital Medicine at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. Her clinical work includes attending on the inpatient teaching service, surgical co-management, and the Faculty Hospitalist Service. She is Interim Director of the UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science, Health Policy, and affiliate faculty at the Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF.

She is the course director for a first-year UCSF School of Medicine course titled “Health and the Individual/Health and Society,” focused on health equity, social justice and health systems science content, and is helping to build the anti-oppression curriculum at the medical school. Her scholarly work includes research on physician advocacy, social justice education, and care of socially complex patients.

Megha Garg, MD

Alyssa Perez, MD

Dr. Perez is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine. She specializes in the care of lung transplant recipients and patients with cystic fibrosis. She is also the UCSF Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Assistant Program Director for Advanced Lung Disease, Procedures, and subspecialty clinics.

Dr. Perez graduated from Jefferson Medical College and completed Internal Medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She received her master of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She then came to UCSF for pulmonary and critical care fellowship. She spent her third year of fellowship pursuing advanced training in lung transplantation, cystic fibrosis, and advanced lung disease.

Alyssa Perez, MD

Lekshmi Santhosh, MD

Dr. Lekshmi Santhosh specializes in adult pulmonary and critical care medicine with a focus on medical education. She attends in the Medical ICU, the Neuro ICU, on the Internal Medicine teaching wards, and has clinic at the Pulmonary Outpatient Faculty Practice at UCSF-Parnassus. She is the founder and Medical Director of the multidisciplinary long-COVID/post-ICU OPTIMAL Clinic at UCSF Health.

She serves as the Associate Program Director for Curriculum for the Internal Medicine Residency and the Associate Program Director of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship. She also is the Director of the Department of Medicine Grand Rounds. She obtained her Master's in Health Professions Education from UC-Berkeley. Her primary interests in medical education research are related to ICU transitions of care, women in leadership, clinical reasoning, and subspecialty career choice.

Lekshmi Santhosh, MD

David Chia, MD | [email protected]

Dr. David Chia is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at UCSF. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School and completed his residency training at the Yale Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program. He subsequently joined the faculty of the Yale School of Medicine. He was the Firm Chief of Waterbury Hospital with the Yale Primary Care Residency Program before becoming the Associate Program Director of Inpatient Education for the Yale-Waterbury Internal Medicine Residency Program.

Dr. Chia is currently an academic hospitalist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where he is Associate Program Director for Inpatient Affairs for the UCSF Internal Medicine Residency Program and Director of Clinical Operations for the ZSFG Division of Hospital Medicine. His academic interests include quality improvement, curriculum development, point-of-care ultrasound, and global health.

David Chia, MD

Lisa Ochoa-Frongia, MD | [email protected]

Lisa Ochoa-Frongia, M.D. is a clinician-educator and Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF, in the Division of General Internal Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH). Dr. Ochoa-Frongia is a practicing primary care physician and Associate Medical Director at Richard Fine People's Clinic. She is also the Ambulatory Site Director for the UCSF Internal Medicine Residency at SFGH.

Dr. Ochoa-Frongia is currently studying best practices in the treatment of anxiety and depression in the primary care setting, behavioral health integration in safety-net clinics and mental health curricula for primary care providers.

Mia Williams, MD, MS​​​​​​​ | [email protected]

Mia Williams is Assistant Program Director for the UCSF Primary Care/General Internal Medicine Residency Program (UCPC-GIM). She is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at UCSF and cares for patients at the Mount Zion campus. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Arizona, her master's in Clinical Research from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and her medical degree at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of CWRU. Mia completed IM residency at UCSF as a member of the UCPC-GIM Residency Program. 

Mia cares deeply about DEI including anti-oppression and anti-racism for learners, faculty and patients. She leads the DGIM quality improvement workgroup that focuses on improving care for patients with limited English proficiency and is one of the School of Medicine’s Anti-Oppressive Curriculum Component Liaisons. At the national level, Mia works on sponsorship and mentorship through the Society of General Internal Medicine.

Era Kryzhanovskaya, MD | [email protected]

Irina (Era) Kryzhanovskaya is the Associate Program Director for the UCSF Primary Care/General Internal Medicine Residency Program (UCPC-GIM). Era earned her medical degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, then journeyed west for Internal Medicine Residency at UCSF in the UCPC primary care track. Era stayed on for an inpatient chief resident year at the San Francisco General Hospital before returning as faculty to the UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine (DGIM). She has distinguished herself as an outstanding clinician-educator, having been inducted into UCSF’s Academy of Medical Educators in recognition of her extensive undergraduate medical education leadership, her curriculum development expertise as well as her nationally recognized teaching and leadership around caring for patients with substance use disorders. Board certified in addiction medicine, Era started an embedded addiction medicine clinic at DGIM and wants to ensure all health professions learners graduate with competence in addiction medicine! Era is the co-host of Curbsiders Teach, a medical education spinoff of the popular Curbsiders podcast, and brings her energy and enthusiasm for primary care to the APD role! 

Jeff Kohlwes, MD, MPH - Director | [email protected]

Jeff Kohlwes is a Professor of Medicine at the San Francisco VAMC.  After growing up on a boat in Sausalito, he was an undergraduate at UC Davis and a medical student at Dartmouth. After being a resident and chief resident at UCSF he was medical director of the methadone and AIDS clinic at ZSFG for two years.  He was then a RWJ Fellow at the University of Washington before returning to run the PRIME Residency Program in 2000 focusing on residency scholarship where his residents have published almost 300 first author publications.  His research focuses on residency training tracks, and scholarship.  As Associate Editor for JGIM he developed the Exercises In Clinical Reasoning Series to create a case-based curriculum for educators. In 2018, Jeff was awarded the UCSF Academic Senate Teaching Award for senior faculty for his ongoing contributions as a teacher, mentor and scholar. An avid outdoorsman, Jeff has climbed most of the highest west coast mountains and raft-guided throughout the west.

Beth Cohen, MD, MA - Associate Director | [email protected]

Beth Cohen is an Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and a Staff Physician at the San Francisco VA. After completing medical school and residency at UCSF, she joined the SFVA as a Women's Health fellow. Since joining the faculty in 2008, she has developed a clinical research program designed to improve the health of patients with posttraumatic stress disorder. She studies the mechanisms connecting PTSD to chronic physical illness as well as the comparative effectiveness of treatments for PTSD. She is actively involved in research training through her roles in the PRIME program and the SFVA based Measurement Science QUERI.

Joan Addington-White, MD - Director | [email protected]

Joan Addington-White is the track director for the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital Primary Care program. She joined UCSF in October. Prior to coming to UCSF, Joanie was a faculty member in the Division of General Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, where she launched and served as the Program Director of the Internal Medicine Primary Care Track Residency and the Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine Categorical Residency Program. Joanie's foci include clinical care of the underserved, complex medical issues, HIV, and training the next generation of physicians. 

Katherine Lupton, MD - Director ​​​| [email protected]
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Dr. Kate Lupton is a general internist based at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. She is a primary care provider at the Richard Fine People's Clinic and attends on the inpatient medicine teaching service at ZSFG.

Dr. Lupton's educational interests include ambulatory and primary care education for medical students and residents, equity and inclusion in medical education, physician workforce diversity and the clinical care of underserved and vulnerable patients. She is a core preceptor for medicine residents with continuity clinic at ZSFG and serves as a Resident Advising and Development (RAD) coach with the medicine residency program. She is Director of SPAN (Specialty Practice Ambulatory Sub-Internship), a required longitudinal ambulatory capstone clerkship for 4th year UCSF medical students. Dr. Lupton is a member of the UCSF Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators. She is a graduate of the Harvard Macy Program for Educators in the Health Professions and the UCSF Teaching Scholars Program. Nationally Dr. Lupton serves on the Education Committee for the Society of General Internal Medicine.

Edgar Pierluissi, MD - Director | [email protected]

Edgar Pierluissi has cared for vulnerable populations his entire career and is committed to healthcare quality improvement. He grew up in Chicago and received his MD from Harvard Medical School and completed training and Chief Residency in Internal Medicine at UCSF and a fellowship in Quality Improvement through the Veterans Affairs National Quality Scholars Fellowship. After working at the County of San Mateo as a staff physician, as the medical director of the North County Health Center, and as VP for Quality Improvement for the San Mateo Medical Center and community clinics, he returned to join the UCSF Division of Geriatrics in 2006 as the Founding Medical Director of the Acute Care for Elders Unit at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. He has led the Health Systems Leadership track focusing on quality improvement and healthcare policy since 2012. He was named a Master Clinician in the Department of Medicine in 2018. When he is not working you can find him backpacking, flyfishing, traveling, baking bread, making jam, or in his garden.

Neil Shah, MD, PhD - Director | [email protected]

Neil Shah has served as Director of the Molecular Medicine Residency Pathway since 2015. He completed his MD and PhD training at UCLA, where he remained for clinical training in Internal Medicine and Hematology/Oncology. He was recruited to UCSF as an Assistant Professor in 2006 and has led a laboratory research program focused on targeted therapeutics for hematologic malignancies. In addition to working to support lab-based physician-scientists, he is interested in ways to make this career path a reality for individuals from diverse backgrounds.

Aparna Sundaram, MD -- Associate Director | [email protected]

Aparna B. Sundaram, MD is an Assistant Professor in Residence at UCSF, where she attends in the intensive care units at Moffitt-Long Hospital. Dr. Sundaram received her undergraduate and medical degrees from Northwestern University. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Northwestern, and came to UCSF for Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine fellowship. After completing additional research training with Dr. Dean Sheppard, she joined the faculty of the division in 2014. Dr. Sundaram has also taken an active role in mentorship of trainees and has served as a facilitator for the inquiry curriculum in the UCSF School of Medicine.

Dr. Sundaram’s primary academic focus is the development of a more detailed understanding of the mechanisms of smooth muscle mediated airway narrowing that play a role in chronic airway diseases such as asthma and COPD. Her current research focuses on the role of cellular tethering proteins in regulating force transmission, with the goal of leveraging these targets to design more potent inhibitors of smooth muscle contraction using a combination of in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo models of disease.