UCSF Ebola Responders to Share Their Stories at Town Hall

UC San Francisco volunteer responders to the Ebola outbreak will share their stories during a panel discussion at a town hall on Thursday, Feb. 26.

The town hall will be presented live in Rock Hall Auditorium on the Mission Bay campus and streamed live on the web from noon to 1 p.m.

Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS, will kick off the town hall by recognizing the more than 100 volunteers who have stepped up to care for patients in West Africa and at UCSF in the event that a patient infected with Ebola is admitted to the medical center.

George Rutherford, MD, director of the Global Health Sciences Prevention and Public Health Group and co-chair of the Chancellor’s task force on Ebola, will present an overview of the global health response and its impact on the Ebola epidemic.

“We are exceptionally proud of all of our volunteers – doctors, nurses, scientists and others – who have responded to this public health crisis, often putting their own lives on the line,” Rutherford says. “This is an opportunity to recognize them and hear about their work in West Africa and at UCSF.”

Adrienne Green, MD, associate chief medical officer, will give an update on UCSF Medical Center’s response. She has led a team with representatives across the campus and medical center who have trained clinicians, instituted new policies and procedures and established and equipped a secured isolation unit at Mount Zion in case the medical center receives a patient with suspected or confirmed Ebola.

Gavin Yamey, MD, MPH, associate professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics in the Global Health Group, will moderate a panel including:

• Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, a UCSF infectious disease physician and developer of diagnostic tools for infectious diseases;
• Eric Goosby, MD, a UCSF professor of medicine and Global Health Sciences, where he is director for Global Health Delivery and Diplomacy;
• Dan Kelly, MD, a UCSF physician and co-founder of a health clinic in Sierra Leone, where he has cared for patients with Ebola and train health care workers on infection control. He founded Well Body Alliance to support the Ebola response.
• Tina Mammone, PhD, RN, a patient care director in the Department of Nursing directs the Ebola isolation unit at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion;
• Farrah Kashfipour, MS, a critical care nurse and UCSF global health fellow who took a leave from her fellowship last fall to respond to the Ebola crisis. She worked with Partners In Health in Liberia training health care workers in infection prevention and control in rural villages.

For more internal-facing stories from the UCSF community, please visit Pulse of UCSF.