Speaker Profile

M.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine, UCSF

Biography
Robert M. Wachter, MD is Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He coined the term “hospitalist” in 1996 and is often considered the “father” of the hospitalist field, the fastest growing medical specialty in U.S. history. His 2015 book, The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age, was a New York Times science bestseller. Thirteen times, Modern Healthcare magazine has ranked him as one of the 50 most influential physician-executives in the U.S.; he was #1 on the list in 2015. In 2020-21, his tweets on Covid-19 served as a trusted source of information on the clinical, public health, and policy issues surrounding the pandemic.


 Session Abstract – PMWC 2022 Silicon Valley


The COVID-19 pandemic is driving the unprecedented transformation of the global medical research ecosystem through the search for effective new therapeutics that can help ease symptoms and prevent death among COVID-19 patients.

  • SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak Surveillance (PANEL)
    Session Chair: Charles Chiu, UCSF
    - Bronwyn MacInnis, The Broad Institute
    - Duncan MacCannell, CDC
    - Christopher E. Mason, Weill Cornell Medicine
    - Joel Sevinsky, Theiagen
  • Experiences from the Front Lines of a National Viral Surveillance Organization
    Session Chair: Erin Allday, The San Francisco Chronicle
    - James Lu, Helix
    - Sam Scarpino, Rockefeller Foundation
  • COVID-19 Testing: Who, When, What? The Challenges of Testing During the Pandemic (PANEL)
    Session Chair: Alan Wu, UCSF
    - Gary Pestano, Biodesix
    - John Barnes, CDC
    - Kathleen Jacobson, CA COVID Testing Task Force
  • Updates in COVID-19 Drug Development
    Fireside Chat: Aida Habtezion, Pfizer & Lee Hood, Phenome Health
    - Mark Dresser, Gilead Sciences
    - John Fahy, UCSF
    - Yi Shi, Mount Sinai
  • Evolving SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines
    - Daniela Weiskopf, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
    - Karin Jooss, Gritstone
  • Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions
    - Stacey Adam, FNIH
  • Past, Present, and Future: How will We Manage the Next Pandemic? (PANEL)
    Session Chair: Julianne McCall, California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine
    - Lawrence Corey, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
    - Yvonne A Maldonado, Stanford
    - Robert Wachter, UCSF
    - Tomás Aragón, CDPH
  • PMWC Showcase
    - Anne Wyllie, Yale