Q & A With SFGH Surgeon
Andre Campbell
As fomer chief of the medical staff at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH),
Andre Campbell, Professor of clinical surgery and chair of surgical
education in the Department of Surgery at UCSF, is well aware of the challenges
and opportunities facing the public hospital.
Campbell was a member of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s committee that recommended
that a new hospital be built on the Portrero Avenue site to meet
state seismic safety standards.
This interview was conducted in February 2006 when Campbell served as chief of staff.
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San Francisco General Hospital is the trauma center for the entire city
of San Francisco. What that means is that we are available 24/7 in order
to care for all the patients, no matter what happens to them. During any
given day, we are the receiving hospital for the injured for a total population
of 1.5 million people. Any citizen who has a major injury in San Francisco
is brought to SFGH for care, regardless of their financial status.
In addition to the trauma cases that come in, we also take care of approximately
105,000 patients who receive care. That includes pregnant mothers, children
and working poor people without health insurance. In addition, there is
a world-class primary care division, pediatrics and many other essential
services. We are also well known for our state-of-the-art health care for
HIV-infected patients. In short, San Francisco General Hospital is important
to all the people of San Francisco.
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State regulations have mandated that we rebuild the hospital to strengthen
it to withstand a major earthquake. This is a huge endeavor, since rebuilding
is quite expensive. The cost of the hospital has been estimated up to $1
billion by Mayor Newsom and other city planners. It will be extremely important
to pass a bond measure in order to make sure the hospital is built in the
safest fashion. If the hospital is not rebuilt, a significant proportion
of the population of San Francisco will have less access to medical care.
San Francisco will not be the type of city it is today without what we believe
is the best public hospital in the United States.
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We continue to face on a daily basis the problems with providing care for
patients who are underserved and who are sick. It could be as simple as
taking out or removing a cancer that has progressed to advanced stages because
the patient has not received adequate health care, or treating some with
the flu or pneumonia and diabetes.
As part of the Health Commission’s approval of the citywide trauma
plan in 2001, a helipad was planned to be constructed at SFGH. In light
of what happened in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, the medical
staff believes it is essential that we build the helipad and upgrade the
trauma center. In the case of a major disaster and the bridges are not passable,
we will need to move patients rapidly. Air medical access would help ensure
that our citizens are cared for promptly and moved swiftly in and out of
the facility.
This is a citywide issue for all the people in the San Francisco. Rapid
treatment saves lives on a daily basis. We speak of the "golden hour" in trauma. This means that the first 60 minutes are essential to ensuring
an excellent outcome after severe injury. San Francisco General Hospital
is the only trauma hospital in a major city in the United States that does
not have air medical access.
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Many of the physicians who work at San Francisco General Hospital are faculty
members at the University of California, San Francisco’s School of
Medicine. This means that in addition to having the highest quality of care,
there are large numbers of world-class researchers who work at our hospital.
Their discoveries and innovations help ensure the best care for all the
people of San Francisco. All the citizens are beneficiaries of the state-of-the-art
care they receive at SFGH each day.
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The medical education is an important part of what happens here. At any
given time, we have a large percentage of residents and medical students
who work at this hospital providing care to an ethnically diverse patient
population. Typically, 30 percent of the residents at UCSF are at San Francisco
General Hospital at any given time. In addition, there are a large number
of medical students at UCSF who are receiving clinical training at the hospital.
Medical students and residents work closely with the attending faculty,
who are there all the time, and many cite their experience at the General
as extremely valuable to their training.
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The role of chief of staff is quite busy. There are many tasks which I have
to attend to on a daily basis which involve credentialing for the medical
staff in the hospital. In addition, I am involved with helping the administration
deal with outside regulatory bodies that come and survey the hospital, like
JCAHO [Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations] and
the Department of Health Services in California. I am involved a number
of important operational issues that involve the medical staff. I do all
this, and I work as a general and trauma surgeon at San Francisco General
Hospital caring for the citizens of San Francisco.
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I decided to become a doctor when I was in junior high school because I
enjoyed science and biology a great deal. I felt at the time that medicine
would give me a chance to connect my love of science and my interest in
helping people. I did not have many role models in my family, but I thought
it was important that I made a difference with my life. Every day when I
go home, I can say that I have had a positive impact on people’s lives.
It is an honor and a privilege to work as a physician each day and affect
people’s lives.
Medicine is continually changing on several levels. The first is that academically,
every day there are new things that are discovered in medicine. Many of
these new discoveries are integrated into the medical practice. Although
medicine is challenging, it is overall a wonderful experience and it is
a truly exciting career.
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Source: Lisa Cisneros
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