Leadership Transition in the Department of Family and Community Medicine
As Dean Talmadge E. King, Jr., MD recently announced in a message to the School of Medicine, Kevin Grumbach, MD is stepping down as Chair of the UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine, after serving in the role since 2003. Megan Mahoney, MD will assume the role of Chair, effective September 12, 2022.
Dr. Grumbach joined the UCSF faculty in 1991 after completing his medical education, residency, and two fellowships in Family and Community Medicine and Health Policy at the institution. He is the Hellman Endowed Professor of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF, a Founding Director of the UCSF Center for Excellence in Primary Care, and Director of the Community Engagement Program for the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute. He served as Vice President for Population Health for UCSF Health from 2015-2018, and was a founding co-chair of both the UCSF Center for Community Engagement and the Health Equity Council for UCSF Health.
Dr. Grumbach’s research and scholarship on the primary care workforce, innovations in the delivery of primary care, racial and ethnic diversity in the health professions, and community health improvement have widely influenced national policy and practice. With Tom Bodenheimer, he co-authored the best-selling textbook on health policy, Understanding Health Policy - A Clinical Approach, now in its 8th edition, and the book, Improving Primary Care – Strategies and Tools for a Better Practice, published by McGraw Hill.
He received a Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Health Resources and Services Administration Award for Health Workforce Research on Diversity, the Richard E. Cone Award for Excellence and Leadership in Cultivating Community Partnerships in Higher Education, and the UCSF Chancellor’s Public Service Award.
Dr. Grumbach is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, has been an advisor to Congressional Committees and government agencies on primary care and health reform and a member of the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and served on the Steering Committee of San Francisco Health Improvement Partnerships. He is a member of the American and California Academies of Family Physicians, Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, Association of Departments of Family Medicine, Physicians for a National Health Program, Physicians for Human Rights, North American Primary Care Research Group, and was a founding member of the California Physicians’ Alliance. In 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Dr. Grumbach to the California Health Workforce Education and Training Council.
Dr. Grumbach has found his greatest professional joy in the meaningful, sustained relationships he has had over many years with the patients and families he has cared for at the Family Health Center at San Francisco General Hospital, with the faculty, staff, and trainees in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and their dedication to a shared purpose, and with the community partners with whom he has collaborated to improve health equity and hold UCSF accountable to its public mission. Dr. Grumbach will continue to work full-time as a faculty member at UCSF and San Francisco General Hospital.
Please join us in thanking Dr. Grumbach for his myriad contributions to the UCSF School of Medicine and his work weaving together UCSF’s strengths in education, research, patient care, and community engagement to support a high performing health system that promotes heath equity.