UCSF Family and Community Medicine's Shira Shavit, MD, and Hoa Su, MPH, have been named recipients of UCSF’s 2022 Founders Day Awards.
Shira is the Executive Director of The Transitions Clinic Network, a UCSF and San Francisco Public Health Foundation program that addresses the both health and social service needs of individuals returning home from incarceration. Hoa is the Program Manager of the National Clinician Consultation Center at UCSF, a national program offering telephonic consultation to doctors, nurses, expert advice around HIV, substance use, and hepatitis.
The awards are given each year to UCSF community members in recognition of their remarkable work in public service. Community service is inextricably linked to UCSF's mission of patient care, research and education and UCSF faculty, staff, students and trainees are actively engaged in public service in multiple local, regional and global settings.
Shira Shivat MD - 2022 Recipient of the Thomas N. Burbridge Award for Public Service
The following is a transcript from Shira's video interview with UCSF:
I think what's most important is the health system recognizing their role in addressing the health and wellbeing of communities impacted by mass incarceration. And that as healthcare providers, we really have a large role and duty that advocate on behalf of the needs of the communities that we serve.
I'm Shira Shavit, I'm a family physician in the department of family and community medicine and I'm the executive director of the Transitions Clinic Network. The Transitions Clinic Network is a UCSF in San Francisco Public Health Foundation program that addresses both health and social service needs
of individuals returning home from incarceration.
I think what's most important is the health system recognizing their role in addressing the health and wellbeing of communities impacted by mass incarceration.
Shira Shavit, MD, Executive Director
Transitions Clinic Network
When people come out of incarceration, they're 12 times more likely to die than their counterparts in the community in the first two weeks, post-release. They have a much more difficult time meeting their basic needs. It's much harder to get a job. It's much harder to get housing.
It really was a call to action for me, a real recognition that as a healthcare provider I can do something about this health disparity and our program is really working to reverse that harm of mass incarceration, by creating opportunities within the healthcare sector, and that's really where the role of the community health worker came to be.
People who were impacted by incarceration needed to be part of the medical team. People coming home needed to have someone that they could trust, who they could count on, to really be their advocate and liaison and help usher them into the clinic, and that's really where the community health workers help people get linked to important services, like housing, employment, and getting food on the table. You know, all of the things that they really need to thrive once they come home from incarceration. I'm really inspired by their motivation, their passion, their drive, and their dedication
Nationally, our programs have served over 15,000 people in 48 different sites in 14 states and Puerto Rico.
I'm really proud that as an institution, UCSF is working alongside communities to create structures and raise up the voices of people who are disenfranchised, and really work together to really improve the health of the community.
Hoa Su, Program Manager - 2022 Recipient of Chancellor Award for Public Service
The following is a transcript from Hoa’s video interview with UCSF:
My family and I came to America as Vietnamese refugees and I see the value of charity of people giving to help other people.
My name is Hoa Su, I am the program manager for the National Clinician Consultation Center here at UCSF. It's a national program offering telephonic consultation to doctors, nurses, expert advice around HIV, substance use, and hepatitis. My role here is to help make sure that the call center is operating effectively and efficiently.
My identity as someone who's living with HIV really drove me to the work that I do here at UCSF, providing expert advice to other healthcare providers around how to treat people with HIV, to help them prevent from contracting HIV or manage or treat their HIV condition.
I also give back to the community through my participation in the AIDS/LifeCycle, a charity bike ride that is seven days, 545 miles from San Francisco to LA to raise funds to help HIV education, prevention, and treatment.
I hope that my volunteerism shows that anyone can contribute. Anyone can give back to the community.
Hoa Su, MPH, Program Manager
National Clinical Consultation Center
And then also my involvement with Project Open Hand whose motto is "Meals With Love." By prepping food for them, making up to 2,500 meals every day that Project Open Hand offers to the community. That resonates so much with me because food has a way of telling people that you are loved and show that people do care and that they're not alone and that they're not isolated.
As a person living with HIV, that they can still live a healthy life as a contributing member of society.
