Biography
Dr. Lee-may Chen is the Division Director and Program Director for the UCSF/KPSF Gynecologic Oncology Fellowship Program. She is deeply committed to education and improving the outcomes of gynecologic cancer care. Since 2008, I have been the director of the UCSF Gynecologic Cancer Risk Program. With a strong collaboration between the Cancer Genetics and Prevention Program and the Department of Pathology, we have long been interested in identifying at-risk individuals and families for hereditary cancer syndromes. The decision for risk-reducing surgery is fraught with unknowns and anxiety for patients. By studying patient centered outcomes, we are better able to counsel women and personalize their decision making.We are also working closely with the Medical Center on their Perioperative Pathway Program. By creating a surgical pathway for open & minimally invasive surgery cases, we have been able to reduce hospital length of stay and decrease costs without compromising patient satisfaction. Surgical pathways also proves a robust platform to teach quality improvement, and we have integrated medical students, residents, and fellows into various performance improvement projects (opiate disposal, bowel prep) along the patients’ journey.
Polygenic (based on multiple genes/DNA variants) predictions for disease risk and drug response are at the forefront of recent regulatory challenges in precision medicine. Challenges in deployment range from their increased complexity, their clinical actionability, and ethical challenges when a large portion of the input data come from biased subpopulations.