Sujatha Sankaran, MD

Title(s)Associate Professor, Medicine
SchoolSchool of Medicine
Address521 Parnassus Avenue
San Francisco CA 94117
Phone415-476-4830
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    Sujatha Sankaran is an Associate Professor of Medicine with the Division of Hospital Medicine. She received her medical degree from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and subsequently completed her training in Internal Medicine at the Georgetown Universty/Washington Hospital Center program in June 2005. She then worked as an Academic Hospitalist at Columbia University in New York City, where she was actively involved in resident education. Subsequently, Sujatha volunteered in sub Saharan Africa.

    After returning from Africa, Sujatha switched to primarily providing outpatient medical practice for five years before joining the Division of Hospital Medicine as an Assistant Clinical Professor. During this time, Sujatha started a non-governmental organization aimed at training health workers in the developing world to prevent chronic cardiovascular disease. Her current career interest involves providing high quality and safe care to patients in under-resourced regions, both domestically and globally.

    In 2015, Sujatha was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study mechanisms for cardiovascular disease management in under-resourced areas of Southern India. As part of her Fulbright, she partnered with a local rural health site to create a community health worker hypertension program, and helped develop strategies for quality improvement in rural and urban settings with a large burden on chronic diseases. Sujatha has worked on tobacco policy in India and was formerly the Medical Director for Smoking Cessation at Moffitt-Long Hospital and the Physician Champion for Smoking Cessation at UCSF Moffitt Long Hospital. Sujatha is currently the medical director for inpatient substance use at UCSF Health. In this role, she is spearheading efforts to build an inpatient substance use management program and chairs the Substance Use Committee.

    Since 2018, Sujatha has been the director of the quality and safety program for the Department of Neurosurgery. In this role, she leads a number of quality improvement projects for the department, delivers a quality improvement curriculum to the neurosurgery residents, leads efforts to improve patient safety through the incident reporting and M&M systems, sits on the Neuro unit based leadership team, and acts as a representative of the neurosurgery department in institution-wide efforts to improve quality of neurosurgical care.

    Sujatha sits on the UCSF Social Determinants of Health Taskforce, the De-Escalation Steering Committee, and the UC-wide Social Determinants of Health Collaborative. Sujatha is also currently in the Learning Health System Coaching Program for the UCSF Medical Center and in 2020 became a UCSF Lean Champion.
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    Publications listed below are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Researchers can login to make corrections and additions, or contact us for help. to make corrections and additions.
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    Altmetrics Details PMC Citations indicate the number of times the publication was cited by articles in PubMed Central, and the Altmetric score represents citations in news articles and social media. (Note that publications are often cited in additional ways that are not shown here.) Fields are based on how the National Library of Medicine (NLM) classifies the publication's journal and might not represent the specific topic of the publication. Translation tags are based on the publication type and the MeSH terms NLM assigns to the publication. Some publications (especially newer ones and publications not in PubMed) might not yet be assigned Field or Translation tags.) Click a Field or Translation tag to filter the publications.
    1. Racial Differences in Postoperative Opioid Prescribing Practices in Spine Surgical Patients. Neurosurgery. 2022 Nov 16. Letchuman V, He L, Mummaneni PV, Agarwal N, Campbell LJ, Shabani S, Chan AK, Abrecht CR, Miller C, Sankaran S, Rambachan A, Croci R, Berven SH, Chou D, Holly LT, Guan Z. PMID: 36700672.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
    2. Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Neurosurgical Transfers: A Single Tertiary Center Study. World Neurosurg. 2022 10; 166:e915-e923. Reihl SJ, Garcia JH, Morshed RA, Sankaran S, DiGiorgio A, Chou D, Theodosopoulos PV, Aghi MK, Berger MS, Chang EF, Mummaneni PV. PMID: 35944857; PMCID: PMC9356759.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    Translation:HumansPHPublic Health
    3. Are preoperative chlorhexidine gluconate showers associated with a reduction in surgical site infection following craniotomy? A retrospective cohort analysis of 3126 surgical procedures. J Neurosurg. 2021 Apr 30; 1-9. Ammanuel SG, Edwards CS, Chan AK, Mummaneni PV, Kidane J, Vargas E, D'Souza S, Nichols AD, Sankaran S, Abla AA, Aghi MK, Chang EF, Hervey-Jumper SL, Kunwar S, Larson PS, Lawton MT, Starr PA, Theodosopoulos PV, Berger MS, McDermott MW. PMID: 33930864; PMCID: PMC9448162.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    
    4. Preoperative Chlorhexidine Showers Are Not Associated With a Reduction in Surgical Site Infection Following Craniotomy. Neurosurgery. 2020 Dec 1; 67(Supplement_1). Ammanuel AS, Edwards EC, Chan CA, Mummaneni MP, Kidane KJ, Vargas VE, D’Souza DS, Nichols NA, Sankaran SS, Abla AA, Aghi AM, Chang CE, Her vey-Jumper HS, Kunwar KS, Larson LP, Lawton LM, Starr SP, Theodosopoulos TP, Berger BM, McDermott MM. .
      View in: Publisher Site   Mentions:
    5. A Safe Transitions Pathway for post-craniotomy neurological surgery patients: high-value care that bypasses the intensive care unit. J Neurosurg. 2020 May 29; 134(5):1386-1391. Young JS, Chan AK, Viner JA, Sankaran S, Chan AY, Imershein S, Meary-Miller A, Theodosopoulos PV, Jacques L, Aghi MK, Chang EF, Hervey-Jumper SL, Ward T, Gibson L, Ward MM, Sanftner P, Wong S, Amara D, Magill ST, Osorio JA, Venkatesh B, Gonzales R, Lau C, Boscardin C, Wang M, Berry K, McCullagh L, Reid M, Reels K, Nedkov S, Berger MS, McDermott MW. PMID: 32470928.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 1     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    6. Patient safety movement in neurological surgery: the current state and future directions. J Neurosurg. 2019 Oct 04; 1-11. Sankaran S, Andrews JP, Chicas M, Wachter RM, Berger MS. PMID: 31585429.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    
    7. Safe Transitions Pathway for Postcraniotomy Neurological Surgery Patients: High-Value Care That Bypasses the Intensive Care Unit. Neurosurgery. 2019 Sep 1; 66(Supplement_1). Young YJ, Chan CA, Viner VJ, Sankaran SS, Chan CA, Amara AD, Magill MS, Osorio OJ, Gibson GL, Sanftner SP, Ward WM, Ward WT, Wong WS, Aghi AM, Chang CE, Hervey-Jumper HS, Jacques JL, Theodosopoulos TP, Berger BM, McDermott MM. .
      View in: Publisher Site   Mentions:
    8. Preoperative risk stratification of patient mortality following elective craniotomy; a comparative analysis of prediction algorithms. J Clin Neurosci. 2019 Sep; 67:24-31. Rutkowski M, Sankaran S. PMID: 31279701.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 3     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    9. Delirium Risk Factors and Associated Outcomes in a Neurosurgical Cohort: A Case-Control Study. World Neurosurg. 2019 Jun; 126:e930-e936. Morshed RA, Young JS, Safaee M, Sankaran S, Berger MS, McDermott MW, Hervey-Jumper SL. PMID: 30872201.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 6     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    10. A Reduced Exogenous Steroid Taper for Postoperative Brain Tumor Patients-A Case-Control Study. World Neurosurg. 2019 05; 125:e44-e47. Breshears JD, Haddad AF, Viner J, Rau J, Sankaran S, McDermott MW. PMID: 30639502.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
    11. Postoperative Delirium in Glioblastoma Patients: Risk Factors and Prognostic Implications. Neurosurgery. 2018 12 01; 83(6):1161-1172. Flanigan PM, Jahangiri A, Weinstein D, Dayani F, Chandra A, Kanungo I, Choi S, Sankaran S, Molinaro AM, McDermott MW, Berger MS, Aghi MK. PMID: 29462362.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 14     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    12. 334 Interfacility Neurosurgical Transfers: An Analysis of Nontraumatic Inpatient and Emergency Department Transfers With Implications for Improvements In Care. Neurosurgery. 2018 Sep 1; 65(CN_suppl_1):134-134. Safaee SM, Morshed MR, Spatz SJ, Sankaran SS, Berger BM, Aghi AM. .
      View in: Publisher Site   Mentions:
    13. Interfacility neurosurgical transfers: an analysis of nontraumatic inpatient and emergency department transfers with implications for improvements in care. J Neurosurg. 2018 Aug 03; 131(1):281-289. Safaee MM, Morshed RA, Spatz J, Sankaran S, Berger MS, Aghi MK. PMID: 30074453.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 9     Fields:    
    14. Cost-effectiveness development for the postoperative care of craniotomy patients: a safe transitions pathway in neurological surgery. Neurosurg Focus. 2018 05; 44(5):E19. Osorio JA, Safaee MM, Viner J, Sankaran S, Imershein S, Adigun E, Weigel G, Berger MS, McDermott MW. PMID: 29712529.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 5     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    15. An NGO-Implemented Community-Clinic Health Worker Approach to Providing Long-Term Care for Hypertension in a Remote Region of Southern India. Glob Health Sci Pract. 2017 12 28; 5(4):668-677. Sankaran S, Ravi PS, Wu YE, Shanabogue S, Ashok S, Agnew K, Fang MC, Khanna RA, Dandu M, Harrison JD. PMID: 29284700; PMCID: PMC5752612.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 9     Fields:    Translation:HumansPHPublic Health
    16. Changing Operating Room Culture: Implementation of a Postoperative Debrief and Improved Safety Culture. World Neurosurg. 2017 Nov; 107:597-603. Magill ST, Wang DD, Rutledge WC, Lau D, Berger MS, Sankaran S, Lau CY, Imershein SG. PMID: 28843757.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 3     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    17. Implementation of graphic health warning labels on tobacco products in India: the interplay between the cigarette and the bidi industries. Tob Control. 2015 Nov; 24(6):547-55. Sankaran S, Hiilamo H, Glantz SA. PMID: 24950697; PMCID: PMC4272673.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 7     Fields:    Translation:Humans
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