Announcing the Appointment of Karen Hauer, MD, PhD, as the Vice Dean for Education
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Karen Hauer, MD, PhD, as the UCSF School of Medicine’s Vice Dean for Education, effective December 1, 2023.
Dr. Hauer, along with John A. Davis, PhD, MD, Associate Dean for Curriculum, and Kathy Julian, MD, Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education, have been serving as my Medical Education Council and co-interim Vice Deans for Education since January 2023, when Catherine Lucey, MD, began service as UCSF’s Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost (EVCP). We would like to thank them for their outstanding leadership during this transition – sharing the Vice Dean for Education duties to seamlessly support Medical Education learners, staff, and faculty and continue the excellence of our medical education mission. We would also like to thank the search committee, chaired by Andy Josephson, MD, for their work in considering an exceptional pool of candidates for this position.
Dr. Hauer, a UCSF faculty member since 1997, is Associate Dean for Competency Assessment and Professional Standards and Professor of Medicine at UCSF, where she designs and leads the program of assessment in the UCSF School of Medicine Bridges Curriculum and directs the School’s medical student coaching program. This work was recognized with the 2022 international ASPIRE Award for Excellence in Student Assessment from the AMEE International Association for Medical Education.
Dr. Hauer is an active researcher in medical education and a research mentor for fellows, residents, and medical students, with a focus on competency-based medical education, learner assessment, coaching, and remediation. She brings a focus on equity and anti-oppression in her ongoing work in mentoring, leadership, and research, and is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in these activities. Her research includes survey studies of perceptions of bias, equity, and fairness in clerkship grading and in the medical student performance evaluation, analyses of narrative evaluations to identify differences in language used to describe trainees based on their gender and race/ethnicity, and causes and consequences of group differences in assessed performance.
In 2015, Dr. Hauer completed a PhD in Medical Education through a joint program with UCSF and the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Nationally and internationally, she has served in leadership roles with the National Board of Medical Examiners and International Competency Based Medical Education Collaborators, as deputy editor for the journal Medical Education, and as president of the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine national organization. Dr. Hauer earned her undergraduate degree at Stanford University and completed medical school and internal medicine residency and chief residency at UCSF.
In her new role, Dr. Hauer will oversee a talented team of associate deans and directors who collectively oversee Admissions, Student Experience, Curriculum, Assessment and Professional Standards, Medical Education Administration, Regional Campuses, Graduate Medical Education, Continuing Medical Education, Program Evaluation, Faculty Development and Research, and the Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators. She will be the principal leader for promoting the educational mission of the UCSF School of Medicine, for achieving UCSF’s vision of being a global leader in medical education through innovation and scholarship, and will serve as a leader and champion of the School’s ongoing efforts in diversity, equity, belonging, and anti-oppression.
We have no doubt that Dr. Hauer’s longstanding commitment to medical education, proven ability to lead strategic change, steady focus on the learner perspective and equity, and compassionate mentorship position her to be a strong advocate for learner, staff, and teaching faculty needs, and an innovative leader in medical education at the UCSF School of Medicine.