All Sessions

Dr. Harper is a clinician-educator and a sustaining member of the UCSF Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators. He is a past President and Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Geriatrics Society and the current Consulting Editor for Clinics in Geriatric Medicine. Throughout his career, Dr. Harper has worked in various settings across the geriatrics continuum of care, including ambulatory and home-based primary care, long-term care, PACE, and acute and post-acute...

Kelsey Armusewizc, PhD is a clinical psychologist licensed in New York State currently in private practice with experiences working with a broad range of diagnoses across hospital, outpatient, and community-based settings. She currently holds a faculty position as an Assistant Professor in Department of Pediatrics (Developmental Medicine) at Montefiore Hospital and has held previous roles as Assistant Director of a trauma based intervention tasked with training clinical staff in the effective implementation of evidence based...

Arkady Komsoukaniants, MD, is a board-certified internal medicine physician who specializes in caring for hospitalized patients. As a hospitalist, Dr. Komsoukaniants is assigned to patients at the time of admission and provides care only during their hospital stay. As an assistant professor of medicine, Dr. Komsoukaniants is involved in training medical students and residents in hospital medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine through lectures, interactive teaching sessions, and direct patient care. Dr. Komsoukaniants...

Dr. Madhavi Dandu is a Professor of Medicine. She received her undergraduate degree in Comparative Literature and Biomedical Sciences and then a medical degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She completed her residency training in the Categorical Medicine Program at UCSF in 2003. Afterwards, Dr. Dandu attended the University of California, Berkeley and received a Masters in Public Health with a focus on international health and health and human rights. Prior to...

Harris Ahmed DO, MPH is a vitreoretinal surgery fellow physician at Weill Cornell. He is a leader in health policy, serving in national leadership positions in multiple organizations including the AMA, AOCOOHNS, and AOA. He has authored many publications and given lectures on public health advocacy and health policy, specializing in topics such as scope of practice, physician distribution, and medical education. He is currently serving on the board of Trustees for the California Academy...

David Cheng, MD received his BS in Biochemistry, MS in Chemistry, and PhD in Biomedical Physics from UCLA, followed by MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, completion of Internal Medicine and Nuclear Medicine residencies at Montefiore Medical Center, Fellowship in clinical PET scanning at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Monica Gandhi MD, MPH is a Professor of Medicine and Associate Chief in the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is also the Director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), with her research focusing on HIV and women, adherence interventions, and optimizing the use of long-acting antiretroviral therapy.

Dr. Donald I. Abrams, MD, is Chief of the Hematology‑Oncology Division at San Francisco General Hospital and a Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He also practices Integrative Oncology at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. He earned his AB in Molecular Biology from Brown University and his MD from Stanford, followed by an Internal Medicine residency at Kaiser San Francisco and a Hematology/Oncology fellowship at UCSF’s Cancer Research...

Benjamin W. Starnes, M.D., F.A.C.S., is a board certified vascular surgeon at Harborview Medical Center. Dr. Starnes is a Professor of Vascular Surgery, Chief of the Division of Vascular Surgery and Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery for UW Medicine in Seattle, Washington. He also holds the Alexander Whitehill Clowes Endowed Chair in Vascular Surgery. He is recognized internationally for his work in complex aortic pathology and vascular trauma, most notably the management of...

Ezra Cohen, MD, is a medical oncologist and an internationally recognized cancer researcher. He cares for patients with all types of head and neck cancers, including esophageal, thyroid and salivary gland cancers. As a physician-scientist, Dr. Cohen also leads a laboratory that studies novel cancer treatments, including immunotherapy, and has made major contributions in understanding how targeted cancer therapies work. Much of his work has focused on squamous cell carcinomas and cancers of the thyroid,...

Brenda I. Anosike, MD, MPH, is Director, Pediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and Assistant Professor, Pediatrics at Montefiore-Einstein. Dr. Anosike’s clinical focus is on the treatment of various infectious diseases in healthy children, adolescents and young adults as well as those with complex medical conditions and the immunocompromised. She is co-lead for the pediatric COVID-19 monoclonal antibody program, antimicrobial/diagnostic stewardship program and global health. After completing her Bachelor of Arts in 2002...

Dr. Arvind Kamthan has practiced as a board certified Medical Oncologist since 1993. He graduated from S.M.S. Medical College, Jaipur in India. Dr. Kamthan completed his residency in General Internal Medicine at the hospitals in United Kingdom followed by a fellowship in Medical Oncology and Hematology Malignancies at Christie Hospital, University of Manchester. He then pursued a second fellowship in Neoplastic Diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Kamthan specializes in...

Matthew Growdon, MD, MPH is a geriatrician and Assistant Professor of Medicine in the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Division of Geriatrics. Dr. Growdon’s research is focused on improving the quality and safety of prescribing for older adults. Dr. Growdon received his medical school training at Harvard Medical School and his MPH with an emphasis on quantitative methods from Harvard School of Public Health. He completed residency in internal medicine and primary care at...

Dr. Daniel Burack, MD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Montefiore Medical Center / Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he specializes in immunocompromised host and transplant infectious diseases. Dr. Burack earned his medical degree from SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and completed his internal medicine residency and infectious diseases fellowship at New York Presbyterian / Columbia University Irving Medical Center. His clinical and academic interests include antimicrobial...

Dr. Louis Rotkowitz is a medical doctor with 22 years of experience specializing in family medicine, emergency medicine, and surgery. His broad expertise allows him to provide comprehensive care across multiple medical areas, from routine family health needs to urgent medical situations and surgical procedures. This diverse background enables Dr. Rotkowitz to address a wide range of patient concerns with extensive clinical knowledge. Dr. Rotkowitz earned his medical degree from St Matthews University School of...

Dr. Katherine Brooks is faculty in the department of Hospital Medicine at UCSF and works clinically at San Francisco General Hospital. She is a clinician educator and holds several leadership positions in the school of medicine including as a Clinical Skills Mentor at the Joint Medical Program between UC Berkeley and UCSF, Assistant Director of the Course on Diagnostic Reasoning and Co-Director of Model SFGH, a site based longitudinal clerkship program at San Francisco General...

Dr. Ryan Assaf is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Health and Society. He received his PhD in Epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, Fielding School of Public Health where he also received his MPH and earned his BS at the University of California, Irvine. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. Dr. Assaf is a social epidemiologist with expertise in substance use among socially marginalized populations....

Dr. Cederquist worked as an Internal Medicine physician at an academic hospital (University of California San Diego) for over 30 years, and is now retired. She also served as the Director of the Clinical Ethics Program. Throughout her career, she taught medical students and residents.

Lynda Frassetto, MD, is a Professor Emeritus of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology at the University of California, San Francisco (USCF). She grew up in the greater New York metropolitan area and attended college and medical school in Connecticut. She trained as a nephrologist at UCSF and was in private practice in San Francisco before returning to UCSF to start her research career with Drs. Anthony Sebastian and R. Curtis Morris Jr. Over approximately...

Confused about whether to take the SAT® or ACT®? Join a test-prep expert and discover which test plays to your strengths, how they fit into admissions today, and what to do next to get ready for college!

Dr. Micheal H. Crawford is a general clinical cardiologist with interests in non-invasive testing, coronary artery and valvular heart disease, left ventricular function, stress testing and the athlete’s heart. His research has been focused on studies that directly impact patient care. He manages inpatients and outpatients with cardiovascular disease, interprets echocardiograms and ECG based testing, and supervises a variety of stress tests. His teaching has focused on post-graduate education. He was a cardiology fellowship director...

The MCAT® needs no introduction, but it does need plenty of clarification. What does it cover exactly? How much do you need to remember from foundational science classes? Join this session in which we demystify this crucial component of your med school application, shed light on the current competitive landscape, and share strategies to succeed on test day.

Dr. Hunsberger received her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from West Virginia University. She then went on to pursue her PhD under the mentorship of Dr. Miranda Reed at West Virginia University. There she studied glutamate’s role in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) using novel microelectrode array technology. After receiving her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience, she moved to New York City for her postdoctoral position under the mentorship of Dr. Christine Denny at Columbia University. There her work...

Dr. Donald I. Abrams, MD, is Chief of the Hematology‑Oncology Division at San Francisco General Hospital and a Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He also practices Integrative Oncology at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. He earned his AB in Molecular Biology from Brown University and his MD from Stanford, followed by an Internal Medicine residency at Kaiser San Francisco and a Hematology/Oncology fellowship at UCSF’s Cancer Research...

Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and a co-leader of the Dana-Farber Harvard Cancer Center Cancer Cell Biology Program and SPORE in Breast Cancer. Dr. Polyak is an internationally recognized leader of breast cancer research. Her laboratory is dedicated to the study of human breast cancer with the goal of dissecting tumor evolution and use this information to improve the clinical management of breast cancer patients....