CVP Faculty Assume New Leadership Roles

It gives us great pleasure to announce Dr. Urmimala Sarkar as Associate Director of CVP and Dr. Alicia Fernández as Director of the CVP Program in Latinx and Immigrant Health.

Urmimala Sarkar MD, MPH has been Core Faculty with CVP since 2008 and is the Director of the CVP Health Information Technology and the Safety Net program.  She is Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF in the Division of General Internal Medicine and a primary care physician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital’s Richard H. Fine People's Clinic. Urmimala’s research focuses on (1) patient safety in outpatient settings, including adverse drug events, missed and delayed diagnosis, and failures of treatment monitoring, (2) health information technology and social media to improve the safety and quality of outpatient care, and (3) implementation of evidence-based innovations in real-world, safety-net care settings.

Urmimala is committed to enhancing health information technology approaches to improve primary care and ameliorate disparities in vulnerable populations through health-literacy-sensitive, patient-centered approaches, such as co-development and usability testing, in partnership with technology development experts. Her current work applies design thinking and interdisciplinary, iterative approaches to characterize and address safety gaps in outpatient settings.

As Associate Director, Urmimala will work closely with CVP Director Dr. Margot Kushel and CVP Manager Gato Gourley to advance the mission of CVP. 

Alicia Fernández, M.D., has been Core Faculty with CVP since 2016. She is the Director of the newly established Latino Center of Excellence, funded by HRSA and the UCSF School of Medicine. Alicia is a Professor of Medicine at UCSF and a general internist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital where she practices primary care medicine and attends on the medical wards. Her expertise is in health and health care disparities, with a strong focus on diabetes, Latino health, immigrant health, and language barriers. Alicia is an active mentor of students, residents, fellows, and faculty. A member of the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators, she received the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Professorship for Humanism in Medicine (2009-2013). She directs UCSF PROF-PATH (NIMHD R25 MD006832), an academic career and research training program for URM students and students focused on health disparities research; is co-PI of RISE (NHLBI R25HL126146), a national training program in implementation science for URM faculty; and core-PI of SF BUILD (U54MD009523) a joint capacity building program between UCSF and San Francisco State University. Alicia has served as an advisor to many organizations on health disparities related projects, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the California Endowment, the National Quality Forum, the Commonwealth Fund, the American Medical Association, and the American Board of Internal Medicine. Alicia has also been appointed to the Board of Governors of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and the National Academy of Science Roundtable on Health Literacy, and she has served on both since 2014. At UCSF, Alicia has also served as leader in the Differences Matter initiative for health equity since 2015.

Alicia will direct the new program, which will advance research and training on Latinx and immigrant health.

Congratulations to Urmimala and Alicia on their new roles at CVP.