1. < Message from the Chair

The UCLA Department of Medicine (DoM) represents an incredible tapestry of talent, motivation and innovation. Training the next generation of LEADERS in medicine is central to our DoM strategic plan. Our department’s leadership transcends exceptional clinical care to addressing health inequities, as we “pay it forward” to our local community and mentor those who aspire to contribute to our mission in the future. I hope that you will be inspired by these stories about work by our trainees and faculty that exemplify the best of who we are in the DoM.

New DoM Bruin Scholars Will Advance Health for All

At the intersection of our patient care, research, education and community engagement missions, is Bruin Scholars, a program sponsored by the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) Office of Inclusive Excellence that supports the careers of promising UCLA residents and fellows. Each year the office supports trainees with resources to retain them as junior faculty within UCLA Health, following their graduation from their residency or fellowship programs. The DGSOM and the Bruin Scholar’s home department grant them up to $100,000 in funding to support a two-year scholarly project that aims to solve some of our community’s most pressing health challenges.

This year the DGSOM has selected Sasha Parra, MD and Walter Solorzano, MD, MPH, MS as our two new Bruin Scholars. Dr. Parra is a fellow in the UCLA Division of Geriatrics; Dr. Solorzano is a postdoctoral fellow in the UCLA National Clinician Scholars Program (NCSP). Both were born and raised in Los Angeles and are thrilled to continue giving back to their communities.

Sasha Parra, MD

Dr. Parra’s scholarly project will likely center on gaps in care for elderly low-income patients. One component will focus on improving dementia screenings in underserved populations, an initiative she is already working on through her continuity clinic at Harbor-UCLA. Dementia diagnoses are frequently missed or delayed among Black and Latino older adults in particular; as a result, these patients may not get care during sensitive windows when they could benefit from treatment, leading to poor outcomes, more health expenses and compounded challenges for caregivers.

A second part of her project may draw from her experience with nursing home care. Similar racial disparities adversely impact the quality of nursing home care for Black and Latino patients, resulting in poor outcomes. Dr. Parra will conduct a needs assessment for elderly patients in a safety net clinic to assess the need for adult day care services that could be provided through an initiative like the California Department of Health Care Services’ Program of All-Inclusive Care of the Elderly (PACE). PACE could help patients age in their homes instead of being institutionalized, improving their quality of life.

“These projects are important for patients because we see pervasive disparities in chronic disease and access to care in low-income populations, as patients age that means increased morbidity, increased hospitalizations and lower quality of life towards the end of their lives,” Dr. Parra said. "There is not a great effort to address this as patients become older. It is a way to ensure dignity and quality of care for many low-income and working-class patients who have dedicated so much of their lives to their families and their communities."

Dr. Parra is grateful to all of the geriatrics faculty who have supported her in the process of applying for the Bruin Scholars award. Though she is still new to the department, she is impressed and motivated by the DoM’s dedication to working with vulnerable marginalized communities in Los Angeles, as evidenced by the number of community partnerships that have been established since she graduated from medical school.

“UCLA provides great care,” Dr. Parra said. “Everyone deserves access to that care!” 

Walter Solorzano, MD

Dr. Solorzano spent much of his residency training at Venice Family Clinic, where he worked with his mentors, Estelle M. Everett, MD, and Tannaz Moin, MD, MBA, MSHS, on evaluating the use of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in safety-net settings. As an NCSP fellow, he has expanded this work to AltaMed, where, with the support of Drs. Everett and Moin, he is studying CGM uptake, sustained use, and associated changes in glycemic outcomes among patients with diabetes following recent Medicaid policy changes. He plans to build on this work as a Bruin Scholar.

“My overarching goal is to improve the management of chronic conditions for patients in safety-net settings,” Dr. Solorzano explained. “To support this, I am interested in examining how policy and social factors shape healthcare utilization in safety-net systems, including ongoing research on how changes in immigration enforcement influence ambulatory care use and continuity of care for patients with chronic conditions. Together, this work aims to identify actionable opportunities to improve care delivery and reduce disparities in chronic disease outcomes.” 

Dr. Solorzano grew up in the Latino communities of Los Angeles — an experience that continues to shape his perspective and gives deep personal meaning to his work as a clinician and health services researcher. 

“I see many of my own experiences and those of my family reflected in the patients I care for today,” he said. “It is incredibly meaningful to be able to serve communities similar to the one I come from and work to improve care delivery in these settings.” 

When asked about his experiences in the NCSP, Dr. Solorzano said that he has found the program instrumental in preparing him to become a Bruin Scholar. The program’s structured training has sharpened his qualitative and quantitative skills in health services research and provided invaluable experience working with large clinical datasets and evaluating health policy questions.

“The NCSP has provided a strong foundation for designing and conducting research focused on improving care in safety-net settings,” Dr. Solorzano said. The program has also emphasized the importance of collaboration and advocacy by teaching him how to engage with multidisciplinary teams and use research to inform practice and advocate for patients and communities.

“Together, these experiences have prepared me to lead work that is both academically rigorous and directly relevant to patient care,” he said.

Dr. Solorzano added that he has had the chance to work alongside and to learn from several past Bruin Scholars. He feels honored to walk in their footsteps. 

“I’m grateful for the opportunity and excited to build on their example by contributing to the UCLA community and advancing care for patients we serve,” he said. “I also look forward to supporting the development of future trainees through mentorship and pipeline efforts in the department.” 

Congratulations, Dr. Parra and Dr. Solorzano! 

NIH Highlights Dementia Medication Risks Study by Annie W. Yang, MD and John N. Mafi, MD, MPH 

I never get tired of boasting about our phenomenal residents, who not only excel at patient care but also contribute to its improvement through their pursuit of answers to high-impact research questions. In early February, a study by UCLA Internal Medicine Residency Program alumna Annie W. Yang, MD was featured by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) special publication NIH Research Matters. The research — conducted under the guidance of her mentor John N. Mafi, MD, MPH, an associate professor of medicine in the UCLA Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research (GIMHSR), illuminates the current state of risky drug prescribing to older patients with dementia, a dangerous form of low-value care that goes against most clinical guidelines.

Dr. Mafi explained that clinical guidelines such as the AGS Beers Criteria and Food and Drug Administration black-box warnings on antipsychotics and other central nervous system-active medications have for many years cautioned against prescribing such medications to older adults, especially those with dementia. That’s because those medications exacerbate their risk of delirium, falls, hospitalization and even death.

The NIH Research Matters article details their work, but in brief, Dr. Yang, Dr. Mafi and their team used funds from the NIH National Institute on Aging to analyze data from a national survey of Medicare insurance claims submitted between 2013 and 2021. Among other things, their work found that the number of prescriptions among people age 65-plus for potentially dangerous drugs — antipsychotics, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics and some forms of antidepressants — had declined over the period, from 19.9% in 2013 to 16.2% in 2021. The results were published online Jan. 12 in JAMA.

“I was pleasantly surprised — and encouraged — to see the decline was primarily driven by lower prescribing of benzodiazepine and non-benzodiazepine hypnotics,” Dr. Yang said. These drugs are very commonly prescribed for sleep issues and anxiety, both of which are frequent in patients with dementia.

Despite these improvements, the data also showed that more than two-thirds of those who were prescribed potentially inappropriate prescriptions lacked documented clinical indications. Dr. Mafi believes this underscores an urgent need for targeted deprescribing interventions — especially for patients with cognitive impairment, who face the greatest risk of harm. 

“Building on this work, we are developing a best practice alert designed to reduce antipsychotic overprescribing and encourage non-pharmacologic approaches as first-line therapy in the management of dementia,” he said. 

Dr. Yang encourages physicians and prescribers to review medication lists in patients with cognitive impairment or dementia and to consider deprescribing high-risk medications if appropriate. She reminds patients and caregivers that patients are the experts of their own bodies; they should note how they feel after a medication is started, stopped, or the dose is adjusted and talk to their clinician about whether or not the change was helpful.

Dr. Yang feels that this research opportunity gave her the chance to enhance her skills in statistical analyses, complex research project management and the broader academic writing process. She also received funds from the IM residency program to present and share her work at conferences. 

“All of this helped me feel more prepared for Yale's NCSP, and I appreciate still being able to work with the UCLA team even while being on the East Coast,” she said. (She added that she also encourages all interested residents to apply to UCLA’s own NCSP — a recommendation that I strongly endorse!)

Dr. Yang added that she is grateful for Dr. Mafi’s mentorship and for support from the rest of the UCLA team behind the study, including Catherine A. Sarkisian, MD; Nina T. Harawa, PhD, MPH; and Dan Ly, MD, PhD, MPP. She also thanked past and current project support staff Julia Arbanas and Artem Romanov and the DoM Statistics Core (DoMStat) analysts and faculty members Mei Leng and Chi-Hong Tseng, PhD.

“I was actually drawn to UCLA by the strength of its health services research group, which is fortunately tied to the general internal medicine division! I really enjoyed the projects I did before residency — including some on low-value care — and knew I wanted to continue research in some form while at UCLA,” Dr. Yang said. “When John shared his list of ongoing projects at the time, I was excited to join his work on low-value care in older adults.”

Dr. Mafi too expressed his gratitude for the other investigators on the study, the project support staff and the DoMStat analysts and faculty. He also feels fortunate to have had the chance to mentor Dr. Yang.

“Annie's dedication and rigor drove this work from start to finish, and it's a wonderful example of the caliber of research our residents can accomplish here,” he said.

Med-Peds Faculty Share Education Learnings at ACGME Conference 

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Annual Education Conference brings together thousands of medical education LEADERS from across the country. It is fitting, then, that some of our med-ed rockstars showed up and shared their knowledge at the 2026 conference, which took place in San Diego Feb. 19 through 21.

“Our needs assessment and internal survey revealed our target patient populations and gaps in care that lead to poor patient outcomes as well as provider discomfort during hospitalization, including opportunities for the optimization of care for patients with sickle cell disease, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, autism, gender differences, congenital heart disease and genetic syndromes,” Dr. VanderVeen explained. “We also identified a need to provide expedited inpatient transitions of care support for medically complex patients on the pediatric service.” 

The ACGME “Back-to-Bedside” grant called for Dr. VanderVeen and Dr. Halper to provide a unique training opportunity to residents that helped them practice their skillsets and develop a sense of med-peds identity in the inpatient setting — a key bulwark to prevent burnout. Their poster detailed how they designed a specialized curriculum for learners to better understand the nuanced care required to optimize healthcare outcomes for patients with childhood-onset chronic conditions, such as navigating insurance differences, advanced technological reliance of many of our patients, the unique psychosocial challenges of living with a chronic condition of childhood, caregiver support services, as well as ethical and legal implications of caring for patients with developmental differences. 

“With this in mind, we will continue to study the impact of this service on the professional identity formation and fulfillment among trainees,” Dr. VanderVeen said. He noted that the results have helped inform a multi-institutional collaborative effort between inpatient med-peds providers across the country to build best practice guidelines to improve the outcomes of vulnerable populations.

“Additionally, our preliminary data from the pilot demonstrate a positive impact on specific patient populations and was perceived as having a positive impact on providers, patients and their caregivers,” he said. “Interestingly, a trend toward a slightly longer hospitalization with a subsequent decrease in readmission rate speaks to the additional upfront time required to optimize transitions of care and wrap-around support in the hospital to allow for more time spent at home after discharge without the worry of a looming readmission.” 

Dr. VanderVeen added that, as a former chief resident in the DoM, the conference was also a great excuse to spend some quality time with many of the associate program directors in the DoM and division of Med-Peds who have become his mentors and close friends. One such example is UCLA Med-Peds Residency Program Director Gifty-Maria J. Ntim, MD, MPH, who left the event feeling energized.

During the conference, Dr. Ntim and UCLA Med-Peds Residency Program Coordinator Vanessa Galvan received updates on the new ACGME program requirements for Med-Peds that will take effect this year and got a clearer picture of the ACGME’s priorities for next few years (which include, she noted, a big focus on competencies in nutrition and on the use of AI in med-ed). They also enjoyed having the chance to network with colleagues from across the country — and were especially glad to have the opportunity to support Dr. VanderVeen and Dr. Halper.

“They presented incredible work,” Dr. Ntim said.

Please join me in thanking Dr. Ntim, Vanessa, Dr. VanderVeen and Dr. Halper for exemplifying our mission to advance medical education at ACGME — and beyond!

DoM-Led Collaborations at UCSB Help Students Succeed 

I am proud to share that our education mission continues to thrive at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where DoM-led efforts to boost pre-medical education are achieving impressive results in forging paths for future physicians — with more exciting developments in the works. 

UCLA Montecito Primary & Specialty Care-based cardiologist Stephen P. Vampola, MD, MS and UCLA Santa Barbara Primary & Specialty Care-based rheumatologist Kathleen Kolstad, MD, PhD, who spearhead our efforts to provide pre-medical education to UCSB undergraduates, shared that their program recently officially launched a new course on critical appraisal of medical literature. The class introduces upper-division pre-medical students to the art of academic medicine through a journal club-style curriculum that aims to help learners understand study design, learn how to present papers and much more.

“This course has been very, very well received,” Dr. Kolstad said. “It’s a good starting point for medical school for students who are on that path.”

A bit of background on our education partnership at UCSB: Just four years ago, UCSB did not have a dedicated pre-medical track for undergraduate students and only had recently revamped their pre-medical advising program. In 2022, a rockstar team of UCLA DoM Central Coast physicians came together at UCSB to share their expertise on a wide range of topics in medicine — such as taking a medical history, the role of primary care and end-of-life care, just to name a few—in a course titled “Introduction to Clinical Medicine”. These outstanding LEADERS did this entirely as volunteers, with rave responses from students and UCSB faculty.

That single course has grown and is now taught two quarters per year to approximately 150 students per quarter. UCSB pre-medical students also have the opportunity to shadow physicians at UCLA Health clinics. The strength of these efforts is evident in the data: Prior to 2022, UCSB trailed just below the national average on applicants’ rate of acceptances to medical school. Since the start of our work there the acceptance rate has consistently bested national figures — and this year is slated to be one for the record books. 

“2026 UCSB MD applicants are on track to have their best application cycle in school history,” David Lawrence, UCSB health profession advisor, said. “We are currently outperforming the national acceptance rate by over 4% and are more than 10% ahead of our own acceptance metrics, year-over-year."

UCSB pre-medical students’ medical school recommendation letters are often penned by the UCLA clinicians who teach their courses. They speak highly of these students’ progress and potential as physicians.

“We have all these brilliant students, many of them from very diverse backgrounds, that are excited by health and have previously not had any opportunity to be able to get their feet wet and in the door to start their health careers,” Dr. Vampola said. “It’s been really exciting to be able to teach them and provide these opportunities through shadowing and the courses we offer.” 

At the UCSB Economic Forum back in February, Dr. Vampola spoke with new UCSB Chancellor Dennis Assanis about deepening our pre-medical programming at the university. They noted that Chancellor Assanis is very interested in health care and particularly excited about the potential of working with UCLA to build out programming at the intersection of two fields, such as medicine and engineering.

“His enthusiasm for health care creates a lot of exciting opportunities for us,” Dr. Vampola said.

While we are on the topic of UCSB, I would also like to give a shoutout to James Addison Cook, MD, a family medicine and sports medicine physician at Goleta Primary & Specialty Care who is leading an unofficial collaboration to provide mandatory physicals and sports evaluations for UCSB student-athletes. Although we do not yet have a contract in place with UCSB to be the sports program’s official team doctors, Dr. Cook and his colleagues in Goleta have become the preferred physicians for student athletes there. He also has the opportunity to care for them during games.

Thank you to our phenomenal Central Coast clinicians for continuing to go above and beyond to advance our missions in education and patient care!

A Day in the Life: Henry Zelada Castro, MD 

Endocrinologist Henry Zelada Castro, MD has experienced health care systems around the world, beginning in his home country of Peru. During his time as a medical student at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, he traveled to six countries, including the U.S., Spain, Germany, Canada, England and North Macedonia, gaining global exposure to diverse health care systems. He is also well versed in regional differences in health care delivery within our own borders: During his medical training, he worked in Illinois, Texas and several states in the Southeast. His research, postgraduate medical training and work as an attending physician then took him across all four major regions of the United States, from Boston to Chicago, to St. Louis, to Birmingham and ultimately to Los Angeles.

“Seeing how diabetes and metabolic health present in so many different ways across cultures, environments and health care settings truly shaped how I practice diabetes care today,” he said.

“Working with challenging inpatient diabetes cases helps me become a stronger outpatient diabetes specialist,” he said. “This experience allows me to adjust insulin pumps more precisely anticipate any metabolic complications and support patients with much greater confidence.”

Dr. Zelada is also a passionate medical educator who delivers formal lectures and bedside teaching to endocrinology fellows and the internal medicine residents who rotate through his clinic. The topics he covers range from inpatient diabetes care, diabetes technology and hyperglycemic crisis management to atypical diabetes etiologies such as post-transplant diabetes, diabetes related to cystic fibrosis, monogenic diabetes and more. He has compiled an excellent resource for early-career and experienced endocrinology specialists alike in the UCLA Inpatient Diabetes Glycemic Pocket Guide, which helps providers to more consistently manage glycemic control in their patients.

As an educator, Dr. Zelada loves watching trainees’ confidence grow as they put his teachings into practice — and in seeing them pass on their newfound knowledge with others. For instance, he finds it rewarding to watch someone master a concept like transitioning an IV insulin drip or troubleshoot an insulin pump in the hospital.

“When you truly understand how hormones, like insulin and glucagon behave in different clinical scenarios, you become much more confident in your medical decisions,” he said. “Teaching that way of thinking — not just what to do, but why — is something I find very motivating.”

To Dr. Zelada, the most special part about being a clinician at UCLA is the collaboration between him and his physician colleagues.

“The level of medical care they provide is one of the best I have ever seen,” Dr. Zelada said. “So being surrounded by smart people who are so committed to excellence motivates me to stay at the top of my field.”

The Great Flood of 2026 

As I close out this week’s newsletter, I would like to share an uplifting account that exemplifies our community’s ingenuity and care for one another. Every night, our hospitalized patients are cared for by DoM residents, faculty and fellows. Last Thursday morning, our night teams awoke to find their sleep rooms flooded. Undaunted, they made their way upstairs through ankle deep water and signed out to the day teams without missing a beat.

The “Great Flood of 2026” affected much of the B level of RRMC, leaving our teams without dedicated overnight rest spaces. In response, the department came together to repurpose offices and identify new, and often creative, places for our physicians to rest during busy nights, including the department’s executive suite. 

We are deeply grateful for the resourcefulness of our hospitalist leadership, the Brady Bunch Chiefs and our administrative team, who quickly transformed workspaces, procured bedding and kept spirits high during a challenging stretch. Our chief residents demonstrated that no task is too small for LEADERS — whether leaving a mint on a pillow, stacking blankets in the executive suite, or vacuuming a newly converted workspace for the oncology team.

In addition to our chiefs, I would like to give a special thanks to UCLA Internal Medicine Residency Program Associate Program Edward Lee, MD and Karmel Bas, executive assistant to Neveen S. El-Farra, MD and Linda Kaye Czypinski, MD.

Dale

P.S.

Many of you have wished me luck during my pitching debut at the Dodgers-Mets game this Wednesday night. Some of you are also hoping that I have been practicing my baseball pitching. Albert has been very generous with his time as a catcher. I’ll be ready!

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