UCSF Medical Center

Happy National #PharmacyWeek to our pharmacists and technicians! This dedicated team makes sure our patients receive safe and effective medications during the COVID-19 pandemic and every day!

Please congratulate Krystieshe rang the end-of-treatment bell at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals after months of chemo and surgery for bone cancer!

Heather is doing great six months after her spine surgery! At age 12, Heather received a scoliosis diagnosis and spent her teen years wearing a brace 23 hours a day. Unfortunately, her spine curvature and pain got worse over time. Last year, Heather had a full spinal fusion at a non-UCSF hospital that left her unable to stand up straight, in continued pain and depressed. Our spine team performed a revision surgery in April, and Heather is now recovering well and able to walk on a treadmill and use an elliptical machineshe might even be able to play golf soon! "He gave me my life back," Heather says of her UCSF surgeon, Dr. Berven.

Brad is doing great 3+ years after his double-lung transplant and cochlear implant surgery! Brad has cystic fibrosis and, prior to his transplant, hadn’t hiked since his senior in high school and needed to carry an oxygen tank everywhere he went. Brad also lost his hearing because of some of his cystic fibrosis treatments. Since his transplant and cochlear implant, Brad has normal hearing and has hiked and traveled all over the world, including Yosemite, Australia, Jordan, Switzerland, Japan and Singapore! Brad is doing so well that he’s preparing to move back to his home state of Hawaii, after spending several years in the Bay Area for medical treatment at UCSF! WATCH a KPIX CBS San Francisco Bay Area special about Brad’s amazing recovery at 6:30 p.m. PST, Sunday, Oct. 11 https://ucsfh.org/3iGpYVu

Great News: The Kidney Project, headquartered at UCSF, has received a $1 million grant that could accelerate development of the world's first implantable, bioartificial kidneya potentially life-changing device for people on dialysis!

Eric is doing great four months after his spine surgery! After many years of sports, Eric developed spinal degeneration and had trouble standing for more than a few minutes. He traded baseball and tennis for the lower-impact sport of pickleball and managed his discomfort with nerve medication and epidural shots. Unfortunately, Eric’s pain got much worse in April, and he had spinal-fusion surgery at our hospital. Eric has been diligent about recovery and PT, surprising his care team with his quick progress! He recently got the all-clear to get back on the pickleball court and is thrilled with how much his quality of life has improved!

We're proud to open a new infusion suite at the UCSF-John Muir Health Cancer Center in Berkeley, featuring five private infusion rooms and a team of experienced oncology nurses! The center lets our East Bay patients receive world-class cancer care closer to home!

Becky is doing great almost two years after her kidney transplant! Becky spent 8+ years on dialysis waiting for a transplant after a rare vascular disorder, Henoch-Schönlein purpura, caused her kidneys to fail. Declining health forced Becky to put college on hold for several years. Last year she was thrilled to graduate with a degree in criminology and is just one semester away from finishing her paralegal studies!

Our Intensive Care Unit nurses opened Tuesday's San Francisco Giants game by cheering PLAY BALL in the official broadcast! They were pumped to open the game on Nurses Appreciation Night!

One of our medicine wards teams recently wrapped up a month of caring for hospitalized patients togetherthey marked the occasion with a physically distanced send-off! #GoTeamE

The UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals school room received 40 new iPads to help hospitalized kids keep up with remote learning during the pandemic! Thank you, Royal Automotive Group, for this important donation and for organizing a virtual back-to-school party and magic show for our pediatric patients!

Our Center for Advanced 3D+ Technologies uses 3D printing and virtual reality to help doctors prepare for surgery and explain procedures to patients! Radiologist Dr. Kelil and surgeon Dr. Mukhtar created this precise 3D model of a patient's breast for a cancer surgery this week!

John is celebrating five years cancer-free and his birthday! He was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2015 and underwent surgery and six months of chemo. Just before his diagnosis, John cycled 375 miles from Monterey to Anaheim. Last month John took his oldest son to Oregon for college and biked to the top of Mount Ashland!