Catherine Chen, MD
Associate Professor
Anesthesia
School of Medicine

Her research program is focused on identifying and reducing low-value care, especially instances of perioperative healthcare overutilization that may not be of benefit and can cause potential harm to surgical patients. She employs large datasets, such as Medicare claims and the OptumLabs Data Warehouse, as well as interdisciplinary and cross-institutional collaborations to conduct her research.

Dr. Chen’s studies have highlighted the increased risk of delayed surgery and falls associated with the overuse of routine preoperative testing in cataract surgery patients as well as the unintended consequences of inappropriate opioid prescription, including opioid over-prescription at hospital discharge. Using quantitative and qualitative approaches, Dr. Chen’s current work aims to improve our understanding of anesthesia resource utilization during cataract surgery to better allocate anesthesia personnel to those cataract patients who may benefit most from having an anesthesiologist supervising their care intraoperatively. Other areas of interest include perioperative healthcare disparities, COVID-19’s impact on surgical care, and environmental sustainability in the operating room.

Dr. Chen sits on the editorial boards of Anesthesia & Analgesia and the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia and holds national leadership positions representing key organizations including the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research and the Early Stage Anesthesiology Scholars. In her clinical work, Dr. Chen supervises and trains residents and medical students while providing operating room anesthesia and obstetric anesthesia to patients seeking medical care at UCSF’s Parnassus, Mission Bay, and Mount Zion campuses. When she’s not doing research or caring for patients, Dr. Chen enjoys making music, baking, gardening, and watching Kdramas with her husband and three daughters.

• Opioid prescribing practices at hospital discharge for surgical patients before and after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2016 opioid prescribing guideline.
  BMC anesthesiology 2022 Langnas E, Bishara A, Croci R, Rodriguez-Monguio R, Wick EC, Chen CL, Guan Z
• Postoperative Respiratory Events in Surgical Patients Exposed to Opioid Analgesic Shortages Compared to Fully Matched Patients Non-exposed to Shortages.
  Drug safety 2022 Rodriguez-Monguio R, Lun Z, Bongiovanni T, Chen CL, Seoane-Vazquez E
• The Triple Bottom Line and Stabilization Wedges: A Framework for Perioperative Sustainability.
  Anesthesia and analgesia 2022 Choi BJJ, Chen CL
• Calling Out Aversive Racism in Academic Medicine.
  The New England journal of medicine 2021 Chen CL, Gold GJ, Cannesson M, Lucero JM
• The association of multimodal analgesia and high-risk opioid discharge prescriptions in opioid-naive surgical patients.
  Perioperative medicine (London, England) 2021 Langnas E, Rodriguez-Monguio R, Luo Y, Croci R, Dudley RA, Chen CL
• A Novel Metric for Developing Easy-to-Use and Accurate Clinical Prediction Models: The Time-cost Information Criterion.
  Medical care 2021 Lee SJ, Smith AK, Diaz-Ramirez LG, Covinsky KE, Gan S, Chen CL, Boscardin WJ
• We Asked the Experts: Breaking the Cycle of Attrition in Perioperative Academic Medicine.
  World journal of surgery 2021 Chen CL, Lucero JM
• Language-Related Disparities in Pain Management in the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit for Children Undergoing Laparoscopic Appendectomy.
  Children (Basel, Switzerland) 2020 Dixit AA, Elser H, Chen CL, Ferschl M, Manuel SP
• Perioperative Prescribing Practices of Extended-Release Opioids in Noncancer Surgical Patients, 2015-2018.
  Anesthesia and analgesia 2020 Rodriguez-Monguio R, Naveed M, Croci R, Gross K, Langnas E, Chen CL, Seoane-Vazquez E
• Preoperative Medical Testing and Falls in Medicare Beneficiaries Awaiting Cataract Surgery.
  Ophthalmology 2020 Chen CL, McLeod SD, Lietman TM, Shen H, Boscardin WJ, Chang HP, Whooley MA, Gelb AW, Lee SJ, Dudley RA
• Association Between Physician Industry Payments and Cost of Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion in Medicare Beneficiaries.
  World neurosurgery 2020 Liu C, Ahmed K, Chen CL, Dudley RA, Gonzales R, Orrico K, Yerneni K, Stienen MN, Veeravagu A, Desai A, Park J, Ratliff JK, Zygourakis CC
• Assessment of Unused Opioids Following Ambulatory Surgery.
  The American surgeon 2020 Dixit AA, Chen CL, Inglis-Arkell C, Manuel SP
• Assessment of Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing of Opioid Analgesics Requiring Prior Opioid Tolerance.
  JAMA network open 2020 Jeffery MM, Chaisson CE, Hane C, Rumanes L, Tucker J, Hang L, McCoy R, Chen CL, Bicket MC, Hooten WM, Larochelle M, Becker WC, Kornegay C, Racoosin JA, Sanghavi D
• Long-Term Trends in Postoperative Opioid Prescribing, 1994 to 2014.
  Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Global research & reviews 2020 Chen CL, Jeffery MM, Krebs EE, Thiels CA, Schumacher MA, Schwartz AJ, Thombley R, Finlayson E, Rodriguez-Monguio R, Ward D, Dudley RA
• A Revised Estimate of Costs Associated With Routine Preoperative Testing in Medicare Cataract Patients With a Procedure-Specific Indicator.
  JAMA ophthalmology 2018 Chen CL, Clay TH, McLeod S, Chang HP, Gelb AW, Dudley RA
• Do Anesthetic Choices Signal Quality?
  Anesthesiology 2018 Chen CL, Neuman MD
• Preoperative Testing in Patients Undergoing Cataract Surgery.
  The New England journal of medicine 2015 Chen CL, Gelb AW, Dudley RA
• Preoperative medical testing in Medicare patients undergoing cataract surgery.
  The New England journal of medicine 2015 Chen CL, Lin GA, Bardach NS, Clay TH, Boscardin WJ, Gelb AW, Maze M, Gropper MA, Dudley RA
• The impact of obesity on breast surgery complications.
  Plastic and reconstructive surgery 2011 Chen CL, Shore AD, Johns R, Clark JM, Manahan M, Makary MA
• In: Brunicardi FC, Andersen DK, Billiar TR, Dunn DL, Hunter JG, Pollock RE, eds. Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery. 9th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
  In: Brunicardi FC, Andersen DK, Billiar TR, Dunn DL, Hunter JG, Pollock RE, eds. Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery. 9th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill 2009 Chen CL, Shapiro ML, Angood PB, Makary MA. Patient Safety.
• General Surgery Review. 2nd ed. Washington DC: Ladner-Drysdale
  General Surgery Review. 2nd ed. Washington DC: Ladner-Drysdale 2008 Makary MA, Chen CL, Meguid R, Al-Attar A, eds
• Liver disease in burn injury: evidence from a national sample of 31,338 adult patients.
  Journal of burns and wounds 2007 Price LA, Thombs B, Chen CL, Milner SM