Dr. Ryutaro Hirose Named Inaugural Vice Chair of Clinical Operations and Value

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Ryutaro Hirose has been named the inaugural Vice Chair of Clinical Operations and Value in the Department of Surgery. In his new role, Dr. Hirose will foster excellence and integration of our clinical practices within the UCSF Health System and its partners, and he will work together with surgical leaders at ZSFGH and the SFVA for clinical program development. He will promote efficient, cost effective, and accessible patient care, working to maximize revenues and ensure that faculty and staff have the systems and support they need to do their jobs effectively and to be fully engaged in practice growth and improvement efforts.

Dr. Hirose is a professor of clinical surgery at UCSF and an abdominal transplant surgeon who performs liver, kidney, and pancreas transplants. He has received funding from the NIH, National Kidney Foundation, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, UCSF, and private industry. He is also actively involved with teaching students and residents.

After receiving an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and MD from Columbia University, Dr. Hirose moved out to San Francisco in 1989 to complete his surgical residency, postdoctoral fellowship in molecular medicine, and fellowship in transplant surgery. He then joined the UCSF faculty in 1999.

Dr. Hirose has served for well over a decade as an Associate Program Director of our general surgery residency, and he will be stepping away from that commitment later this year. He is the current Chair of the UCSF Clinical Performance Improvement Committee and the Department of Surgery’s Quality Improvement Committee. Nationally, he has served as Chair of the UNOS Liver Transplantation Committee, and he has spearheaded the creation and development of NSQIP Transplant. He also is the Surgical Director of the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. His research interests include measurement of outcomes from transplant surgery, the behavior of cancer in transplant recipients, effects of organ allocation policy, and surgical quality improvement.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Hirose on his new appointment!