Ucsf Magazine Fall 2014

MAGAZINE Fall 2014 SURGEONS HIT THE ROAD Saving limbs and lives around the world REJUVENATING THE BRAIN • A SAN FRANCISCO SCOURGE • MODERN NURSING UCSF MAGAZINE INSDIE UCSF FALL 2014 LIGHTS ON! The community recently celebrated the upcoming opening of the new UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay with a community party and dramatic light show. The three hospitals open Feb. 1, 2015. 2 UCSF MAGAZINE | Fall 2012 COVER PHOTO: BARTLOMIEJ JAN SKORUPA, GROUNDWORK OPPORTUNITIES COVER PHOTO: BARTLOMIEJ JAN SKORUPA, 2 Deeply Rooted UCSF’s new chancellor is at home at the helm. 12 Blood Work Scientists discover surprising new tools for rejuvenating the brain. 20 Modern Nursing Take a look into a new world that runs the gamut from developing apps to easing fears. 26 Road Warriors UCSF surgeons confront a global killer – injuries from trauma. 32 Scourge of the City UCSF has long been battling an ancient and wily disease. LIGHTS ON CEREMONY: NOAH BERGER LIGHTS ON CEREMONY: 6 Inside UCSF 11 Faculty Accolades 18 Big Picture 36 Philanthropy 37 Alumni Hub 48 Double Take Fall 2012 | UCSF MAGAZINE 3 DIALOGUE On July 17, 2014, Sam Hawgood, MBBS, was appointed chancellor of UC San Francisco, succeeding Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, who served as chancellor from 2009 to 2014. In September, journalist Sean Elder sat down with him to get a personal sense of the man who has served the University, in one capacity or another, for over 30 years. To learn more about Hawgood’s vision for UCSF, which he shared in his recent State of the University address, visit ucsfchancellor.ucsf.edu. DEEPLY ROOTED “Magic” is one of those sitting in his office in the Medical Sciences occupied by a doctor; and his first interest, tricky words, tarnished by Building on the Parnassus campus. Clements growing up by the coast in Queensland, was (who is now a professor emeritus of pulmonary marine biology. “But when I looked into career overuse. It isn’t often that biology) later patented a drug to compensate paths of marine biologists in Australia in the you hear it from the mouth for the lung coating known as surfactant that ’60s,” he recalls, “I think there were two or three is missing in infants born with immature employed, so it didn’t seem too encouraging.” of a scientist, and in the lungs; the discovery has saved untold lives In Australia at that time, students went wrong setting it can raise and won Clements the Albert Lasker Clinical straight from high school to medical school, “so Medicine Research Award in 1994. it was a decision I had to make at age 16.” He some eyebrows. So when “It was the commonest cause of death, and matriculated as a premed at the University of newly appointed UCSF we had very few tools to overcome it,” recalls Queensland in Brisbane and had what he calls Hawgood. “We could put babies one at a time “a typical student experience.” Meaning? “I got Chancellor Sam Hawgood on what were very primitive mechanical venti- into all sorts of fun and trouble,” he says with a says something was lators. You felt pretty powerless.” slight smile. “I’d come out of an all-boys board- Within months, Sam Hawgood had left ing school into a world I didn’t know about.” “magical,” attention must Australia – with Jane and their then-two- It was there he met Jane, who has been be paid. year-old son – to join Clements’ team. “On his partner for more than 40 years. “She was the 13th floor of this hospital, just above doing social work and had been at university In 1981, the Australian doctor had just toured us, [was this] unusual community of superb for a year, just a little ahead of me. So she was several great hospitals, looking for a place to clinicians as well as scientists from a number an experienced older woman.” get some research experience before returning of different backgrounds, from biophysics “We had a system where older students to Melbourne. “My wife, Jane, and I visited to chemistry to physiology to anatomy, who were given two younger students to mentor,” departments in Paris, London, Oxford, New clearly respected each other, actually really Jane Hawgood recalls. “I got Sam and his best York, and Boston – and San Francisco was liked each other, and worked so well together,” friend. The mentoring in those days consisted the last of my stops,” he recalls. Many of says Hawgood. “They would work with you of playing cards in my room on Sunday night. those hospitals wanted him, but Hawgood even if you didn’t have a clear understanding But honestly, it was kind of like love at first was intrigued by what he’d heard about the of their skill sets. sight for me.” groundbreaking work under way in newborn “For me it was sort of a magical experience,” The two were married after he finished medicine at UCSF. he adds. medical school, and he did his residency train- Hawgood met with John Clements, MD, ing (“to be honest, my first year [I picked] the who was conducting research on the respira- AUSSIE ROOTS hospital more for the quality of the surf than tory problems of premature babies. “I spent Hawgood had come to medicine through the medicine”) before traveling with his new a couple of hours with him, and it was really science and human biology. His parents were wife to Hong Kong, where the two worked in career changing for me,” says the chancellor, pharmacists; an office below their house was the New Territories for a year. The experience 2 UCSF MAGAZINE | Fall 2014 was profound for them both, as they served a poor populace with limited access to health care. “You got to see a lot of medicine you wouldn’t see in Australia at the time,” recalls Hawgood. The Hawgoods traveled extensively throughout South and Central Asia before returning to Australia, where he entered pediatric training and soon became fascinated with the specialty of newborn medicine. His interests in the new and changing field were as much personal as intellectual. “It was that combination of having to have a really deep understanding of developmental biology and normal development, and then overlaying it with the development of the disease process, that was very stimulating,” he says. And the subspecialty burnished his people skills. “While babies have their own personalities,” he says, “as a newborn medicine specialist I learned what an intense period it is for the family.” “Sam has a lot of humility and a lot of integrity, and you see how in love with this place he is.” – JANE HAWGOOD At UCSF, Hawgood found he was good at working with parents, and he credits his wife for her guidance. “I think Jane helped me very much on that; she’s an incredibly skilled observer of the human condition,” he says. “Once we decided to stay [in San Francisco], and she decided to think about her own career, she worked in the AIDS clinic here in the late ’80s, when the epidemic was just at its height.” “We didn’t have anything called self-care in those days,” says Jane. “I had young kids and was really busy. After an emotional day at work, I would get home and start in on a project around the house. I realize now what I PHOTO: STEVE BABULJAK As a young pediatrician, Sam Hawgood was drawn to UCSF by the groundbreaking research under way in newborn medicine. was doing was just reflecting on the day.” Fall 2014 | UCSF MAGAZINE 3 “What I didn’t fully appreciate when I came here can from understanding how a cell functions,” he says. Even when he was working in the was that the environment that allowed me to newborn ICU, he was interested in the context within which he worked and would ask the hospital’s CFO to explain the unit’s financial thrive was not an accidental environment.” structure. – CHANCELLOR SAM HAWGOOD “What I’ve learned over the last 30 years is that if you’re interested in someone else’s domain of expertise and express that interest in a real way, then people are just delighted to sense of what being a dean is, but until you help you,” he says. TAPPED TO LEAD actually do it you don’t know all the nuances.” Her husband’s career began to morph as well, His interests have always been eclectic, and FAMILY MATTERS as he went from vice chair of pediatrics to while he is winding down his own lab work (he His wife’s career has been equally protean, interim chair, with a promise from the then- still manages a research lab but says, given his moving to a concentration on palliative care dean of medicine “that he would do a quick new day-to-day demands, he will close it at the for the last 10 years. She finally retired in June, search and I could go back to doing what I end of this grant cycle) and is no longer work- after 42 years as a social worker, but her retire- loved doing at the time, which was leading ing with patients, he took to the administrative ment is busier than many people’s careers; she the division of newborn medicine.” Instead, in side of academe handily. “This is probably a is still a passionate member of the Zen Hospice 2004, he was made the chair of pediatrics and pretty sad statement, [but] I can get as excited Project board and worked hard to re-establish was, he recalls, “happy doing that, assuming by the mechanics of a financial spreadsheet as I that project’s collaboration between the hospice that was what I was going to be doing for the rest of my career.” Until he was asked to serve as interim dean of medicine by then- Chancellor J.

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