Dr. Elizabeth Wick Named Inaugural Vice Chair of Quality and Safety

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Elizabeth Wick will serve as the inaugural Vice Chair of Quality and Safety for the Department of Surgery. As Vice Chair, Dr. Wick will be responsible for oversight of the Department’s quality and patient safety enterprise, focused in the perioperative space. She will collaborate with UCSF Health and the School of Medicine, managing interactions with other departments, centers and programs to promote collaboration that is focused on quality and patient safety. 

Dr. Wick is a professor of surgery and Co-Chair for our Department’s Research Committee.  She has contributed to the understanding of almost every aspect of perioperative care, from teamwork and communication to organizational culture and quality improvement and measurement. She has helped to define the role of teamwork and communication in surgical site infection prevention and success of clinical pathways. This work, while initiated in colorectal surgery, has spread well beyond. Most recently, Dr. Wick leads a national collaborative around dissemination of surgical pathways to over 300 hospitals, the AHRQ Safety Program for Improving Surgical Care and Recovery.  

Dr. Wick earned her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. She received her medical degree at Vanderbilt in 2000 and then went on to do her general surgery residency at UCSF, completing our training program in 2007. She completed a fellowship in colorectal surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in 2008.  She was a member of the Johns Hopkins faculty from 2008-16, where she initiated much of her quality and safety work and was recognized as the inaugural recipient of the Armstrong Award for contributions to patient safety and quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Minogue Award for contributions to patient safety in Maryland from the Maryland Patient Safety Center. For her work, she was named the first vice chair of quality, safety and service for the Department of Surgery. She has published more than 150 papers and chapters in quality and safety and has been continuously externally funded. 

Dr. Wick is known for her service to the University and Hospital as it relates to quality and safety. As Vice Chair, we are confident that she will bring vision, passion, and experience to the position. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Wick on her new appointment!