Faculty and Staff | UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine

Faculty and Staff Profiles

UCSF DGIM faculty, staff and trainees share a commitment to reducing health and social disparities, advocating on behalf of vulnerable populations, and improving quality of life and health for all. Listed below are selected profiles of current work related to community engagement, policy and advocacy by UCSF DGIM faculty and staff.

Davina Countee, MA
Ms. Countee is a medical assistant at DGIM and an active member of the SPACE Committee. She helped to lead the La Casa de las Madres donation drive. In addition, she on the Steering Committee of Expecting Justice, an initiative in San Francisco to address disparities in preterm birth rates experienced by African-American and Pacific Islander women. Ms. Countee brings her expertise as a community member speaking on behalf of African-American women who have experienced preterm birth.

Beth Griffiths, MD, MPH
Dr. Griffiths currently serves as director of health care advocacy for the UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine and is involved in developing and evaluating efforts to better educate students, residents and faculty on health care policy and advocacy. She is a founding member of the DGIM Social Justice, Policy, Advocacy and Community Engagement (SPACE) Committee, which works to broaden DGIM's impact in the community. She currently serves on the San Francisco Marin Medical Society Board of Directors and the California Medical Association Board of Trustees. She has previously worked in the California State Assembly Health & Human Services Committee and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy & Commerce.

In addition, she serves as Co-Director of the UCSF School of Medicine Community Engagement Rotation, a new course which will allow students the opportunity to provide clinical care in unique community settings, as well as develop knowledge and skills in community engagement and advocacy.

Jane Jih, MD
Dr. Jih’s research program aims to reduce health disparities and promote health equity among multiethnic and linguistically diverse older adults by developing and evaluating innovative, patient-centered interventions. She also studies the influence of social determinants of health on chronic disease management, particularly among patients with multiple chronic conditions and patient-clinician communication about social determinants of health such as food insecurity. Her work on identifying the health-related social challenges faced by patients at DGIM has been instrumental in informing potential interventions, including the Food Pharmacy program. She is also Co-Director of the Multiethnic Health Equity Research Center and Co-Director of the Asian American Research Center on Health.

She is also deeply committed to the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, which nurtures health professional student leaders to develop health programs for underserved communities. As a medical student in this program (Fellow for Life, 2008, Chicago), Dr. Jih initiated a community-based project including a needs assessment to address cardiovascular health disparities in the Filipino community in Chicago. Along with community members, she helped launched the Filipino American Community Health Initiative of Chicago, the first community agency to serve the health of this growing population in that city. Dr. Jih now serves on the advisory board for the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship in the San Francisco Bay Area and mentors current fellows in this program including health professional learners from UCSF.

Leah Karliner, MD
Dr. Karliner is Director of the Center for Aging in Diverse Communities (CADC) and the Director of the Multiethnic Health Equity Research Center (MERC). Dr. Karliner’s scholarly work centers on improving quality of care for limited English speaking patients, and the study of health disparities and communication at critical clinical junctures for older patients such as hospital transitions and breast cancer diagnosis, as well as in chronic care management in primary care. Ultimately, the goal of her research agenda is aimed at achieving health equity through improved communication and clinical outcomes.

Pamela Ling, MD
Dr. Ling studies tobacco industry marketing strategies targeting young adults, women, and other high risk population, and new smokeless and novel tobacco product marketing strategies. Her work includes analyses of thousands of previously secret tobacco industry documents detailing marketing strategies targeting young adults, and translating the lessons learned to improve tobacco control efforts. She currently serves on the California ***. She is a founding member of the SPACE Committee.

Ranesha Moreno, MA
Ms. Moreno is a medical assistant at DGiM and an active member of the SPACE committee. She helped to lead the Casa de Las Madres donation drive. In addition, she is the Co-founder and Chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee at her children’s school, where she is on the Board. She has worked actively on recruitment strategies to diversify the school community and its leadership.

Gina Moreno-John, MD
Dr. Moreno-John has a lifelong passion for social justice, advocacy and community engagement. She is a founding member of the DGIM Social Justice, Policy, Advocacy and Community Engagement (SPACE) Committee, which works to broaden DGIM's impact in the community. She is the Director of the UCSF DGIM Food Pharmacy program, which delivers nutritious foods to DGIM patients experiencing food insecurity. In addition, she serves as Co-Director of the UCPC Behavioral Medicine course, in which UCPC primary care internal medicine residents learn to counsel patients for behavior change, learn to manage psychiatric conditions commonly, and learn skills for effective advocacy to reduce the social determinants of health.

In addition, she is a volunteer preceptor at La Clinica Martin Baro and an active member of UCSF’s Do No Harm Coalition, Physician Women for Democratic Principles, Everytown for Gun Safety, and ACLU People Power.

Sunita Mutha, MD
Dr. Mutha is director of Healthforce Center, where she leads the organization’s efforts to integrate workforce research with building leadership capacity, to ensure more effective health care delivery. Dr. Mutha is also a nationally recognized expert in issues related to health equity, language barriers and cultural competence training. Her research has focused on improving care and looking at the intersection between quality improvement and health care disparities.

She has served on multiple panels and boards including the Joint Commission’s Expert Advisory Panel guiding the development of hospital standards for culturally competent patient-centered care and the National Quality Forum’s Cultural Competence Steering Committee. She is a board member of Insure the Uninsured Project (ITUP), a trusted and independent expert, grounded in statewide and regional connections with a network of policymakers, health care leaders and stakeholders in California.

Tung Nguyen, MD
Dr. Nguyen teaches medical students and residents about medicine, health disparities, and community-based participatory research (CBPR). He has conducted CBPR and intervention research with Asian American populations including Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Korean, and Vietnamese Americans on cancer control, tobacco control, hepatitis B and C screening, nutrition and physical activity, and end-of-life care. He is a founding member of the SPACE Committee.

Dr. Nguyen is Director of the Asian American Research Center on Health (ARCH; www.asianarch.org), which has over 40 individual and organizational members dedicated to improving the health of Asian Americans. Dr. Nguyen founded and lead two non-profit advocacy organizations: AAPI Progressive Action and PIVOT (The Progressive Vietnamese American Association). He is also a Steering Committee member of the San Francisco Cancer Initiative (SF-CAN; http://www.sfcancer.org/), an innovative effort to reduce cancer morbidity and mortality across an entire city. Dr. Nguyen served as a Commissioner on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from 2011 to 2014 and as the Chair of the Commission from 2014 to 2017. He is also UCSF Dean’s Diversity Leader.

Arianne Teherani, PhD
Dr. Teherani is an education researcher whose main research interests are in the areas of professionalism, professional identity formation, and equity in medical education. Dr. Teherani’s research has focused on the role of assessment and learning environment practices in perpetuating educational disparities and interventions aimed at creating equity during medical education. She has led advocacy dialogue on the critical role of educational research and evaluation in addressing educational inequities, and developing and promoting successful change.

Dr. Teherani has also led research and advocacy efforts on education for climate and ecosystem change sustainability, and health. She co-directs the Climate Change and Health course for medical and pharmacy students, and the University of California-wide Climate and Health in Education Faculty Development initiative. Dr. Teherani is the recipient of the University of California Faculty Climate Action Champion Award and the UCSF Faculty Sustainability award.