Elizabeth Dzeng, PhD, MD, MPH
Associate Professor
Medicine
School of Medicine

415-443-1233

Dr. Dzeng is a sociologist and hospitalist physician conducting research at the nexus of sociology, medical ethics, palliative care, health equity, anti-racism, and human-centered design.

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She is an Associate Professor "In Residence" at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in the Division of Hospital Medicine and Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sociology program, Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. She spends her time between San Francisco and London where she is a Senior Research Fellow at the Cicely Saunders Institute at King's College London. She is also a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, a Visiting Research Fellow at Kings College London’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, and a Visiting Assistant Professor in General Internal Medicine at UCLA.

Her research program focuses on using sociological and human centered design methods to understand how institutional cultures and policies influence clinical practice patterns and how to change institutional culture to improve the quality of care. She conducts large-scale comparative ethnographic interview studies in the United States and the United Kingdom to understand the influence of institutional cultures and policies on clinicians’ ethical frameworks, communication practices, and clinical practice patterns around end-of-life care. A particular area of interest is around the influence of neoliberalism and specifically the culture and ethical implications of neoliberalism on an institution's ethical priorities around end-of-life care.

Her other major research focus is around using community-based participatory research methods to understand how structural racism across the life course influences the provision of quality end-of-life care in older Black adults. This project is in part funded by a NIA/NIH Beeson award and a Sojourns Scholars Leadership Award. In addition, she is working on several projects to improve equity and promote anti-racist care around hospitalist care at UCSF. One project, funded by UCSF's Caring Wisely award, is a new health advocate program to help support and advocate for African American and patients with limited English proficiency. A second project is a partnership with GLIDE, to expand their program, "Healers at the Gates" to create culture change around anti-racism and equity in UCSF's Division of Hospital Medicine.

Among her national leadership roles, Dr. Dzeng is on the Society of General Internal Medicine's (SGIM) Governing Council Executive Committee as an At-large Member, an Associate Editor for the Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM), and a member of the Executive Committee of the Research Centers Cooperative Network (RCCN), a national coordinating center of the National Institutes on Aging (NIA) center programs. She is also a past Chair of the SGIM Ethics Committee. A central focus of her local and national leadership efforts have been focused on anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion. This includes involvement as a member of the Task Force for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility for the Clinician-Scientists Transdisciplinary Aging Research (Clin-STAR) Coordinating Center, a national NIA platform for early career researchers in aging research; member of UCSF’s Taskforce on Anti-Racism and Equity in Research; a member of the Equity Committee of the Sojourns Scholars Leadership Program community; and a member of the UCSF Academic Senate's Equal Opportunity Committee.

Dr. Dzeng completed her PhD in Medical Sociology and an MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge at King’s College as a Gates Cambridge Scholar where she wrote her doctoral thesis on the influence of institutional cultures and policies on physicians’ ethical beliefs and how that impacted the way they communicate in end of life decision-making conversations. She was also a General Internal Medicine post-doctoral clinical research fellow and palliative care research fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. As an undergraduate and engineering graduate student at Stanford, she participated in the first class of Stanford's Biodesign Innovation program where she used design thinking to co-invented and patented a device to non-invasively cool the heart through the esophagus to prevent myocardial damage during a myocardial infarction (US Patent 7,758,623; 2010). In August, 2019 this patent was licensed to Attune Medical.

Outside of academic medicine, Dr. Dzeng is a competitive masters and club rower and has competed in races such as the Head of the Charles and won at the British Master Regatta. She is happiest when traveling the world, especially hiking and exploring the world's natural wonders.

Awards

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  • Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging (K76), National Institute on Aging (NIA/NIH), 2022-2027
  • Sojourns Scholars Leadership Award, Cambia Health Foundation, 2022-2024
  • Alzheimer's Disease Research Award, California Department of Public Health, 2019-2024
  • NIH Loan Repayment Program Renewal Award, National Institute on Aging (NIA/NIH), 2019-2021
  • KL-2 Scholar, UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), 2017-2020
  • NIH Loan Repayment Program Award, National Institute of Health, 2017-2019
  • Junior Investigator Career Development Award, National Palliative Care Research Center (NPCRC), 2017-2019
  • Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, Global Brain Health Institute, UCSF, 2017-2018
  • Andrew Markus Scholarship, Ethox Centre for Bioethics and Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, 2016
  • Research Scholar Award, American Association of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM), 2015-2016
  • Research Core Development Scholar, UCSF Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, 2015-2016
  • Ho-Chiang Palliative Care Research Fellowship, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 2014-2015
  • Founders Grant Award, Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM), 2014-2015
  • Gates Cambridge Scholarship, University of Cambridge, 2011-2015
  • Gates Cambridge Scholarship, University of Cambridge, 2007-2008
  • Delta Omega Public Health Honors Society Inductee, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2007
  • Watt Hansell Scholarship, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2006-2007

Education & Training

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  • Fellowship General Internal Medicine Johns Hopkins School of Medicine 2015
  • PhD Medical Sociology University of Cambridge 2015
  • Residency Internal Medicine Columbia New York Presbyterian Hospital 2011
  • MD Johns Hopkins School of Medicine 2009
  • MPhil Development Studies University of Cambridge 2008
  • MPH Health and Human Rights/Humanitarian Aid Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 2007
  • BS Biological Sciences and History Stanford University 2003
  • MS Chemical Engineering Stanford University 2003

Interests

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  • anti-racism
  • social justice
  • medical ethics
  • moral distress
  • potentially inappropriate life-sustaining treatments
  • medical sociology
  • human-centered design
  • qualitative research
  • palliative care
  • end of life care
  • neoliberalism
  • structural racism

Websites

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Grants and Projects

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  • Understanding and addressing structural racism and its impact on the quality of end-of-life care in older Black adults, National Institute on Aging (NIA/NIH), 2022-2027
  • Human-Centered Desiqn to Mitigate Burdensome Life-Sustaininq Treatments at the End-of-Life, California Department of Public Health, 2019-2024
  • Developing an educational program for palliative care clinicians on how structural racism influences goal-concordant, quality end-of-life care in older Black adults, Sojourns Scholars Leadership Award, Cambia Health Foundation, 2022-2024
  • Development of a project collaboration between Atlantic Fellows around health advocacy and capacity building in Nigeria and South Africa, Atlantic Institute Collective Impact Grant, 2023
  • Using qualitative life course perspectives to understand the lived experience of structural racism in older Black adults and its influence on goal-concordant end-of-life care, RCCN's Inter-NIA Center Pilot Award on Life Course Perspectives on Aging and Resilience., 2021-2023
  • Understanding how structural racism influences goal concordance around end-of-life care in older Black adults, UCSF Resource Allocation Program (RAP) Pilot Award for Research on Racism Impacting Black People, 2021-2022
  • Understanding access to palliative care support for people with advanced ill health who have unsettled immigration status and are homeless, Marie Curie Internal Small Research Grants, 2021-2022
  • Identifying factors that contribute to burdensome treatments near the end of life in older adults with dementia in the US, UK, and France, Alzheimer's Association UK and Global Brain Health Institute, 2019-2021
  • Identifying contributing factors to burdensome ICU treatments in older adults with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias in the United States and United Kingdom, NIH, 2018-2021

Publications (65)

Top publication keywords:
Suicide, AssistedWithholding TreatmentMoralsAttitude of Health PersonnelAmyotrophic Lateral SclerosisPersonal AutonomyDeathSuicideHospice and Palliative Care NursingResuscitation OrdersBurnout, ProfessionalPhysiciansHospice CareTerminal CareMedical Futility

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