Denise Connor, MD

Title(s)Professor, Medicine
SchoolSchool of Medicine
Address1700 4th Street
San Francisco CA 94158
PronounsShe/Her/Hers
ORCID ORCID Icon0000-0001-6281-4438 Additional info
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    Collapse Biography 
    Collapse Education and Training
    University of PennsylvaniaMD2007School of Medicine
    University of California, San Francisco2010Internal Medicine Residency
    University of California, San Francisco2010Health Equities: Academics & Advocacy Training Program
    University of California, San Francisco Inpatient Chief Resident2011San Francisco VA Medical Center
    University of California, San FranciscoTeaching Scholars Program2016Academy of Medical Educators
    University of California, San Francisco, CA2017Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion Training
    Academy of Communication in Healthcare2021Relationship-Centered Communication Facilitators Program
    Academy of Communication in HealthcareOngoingFaculty in Training Pgm (focus: facilitating/communicating/leading for change to promote equity)
    Collapse Awards and Honors
    UCSF, Academy of Medical Educators2012Excellence in Teaching Award
    UCSF, PRIME Program2014Calvin Chou Award for Education
    UCSF, Academy of Medical Educators2016Accepted into Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators
    Society of General Internal Medicine2016David E. Rogers Junior Faculty Education Award for workshop “Teaching Clinical Reasoning"
    UCSF, Academy of Medical Educators2018Cooke Award for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
    UCSF, Academy of Medical Educators and Department of Medicine2019  - 2024Gold-Headed Cane Endowed Teaching Chair in Internal Medicine

    Collapse Overview 
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    CLINICAL ACTIVITIES:
    As a founding member of the San Francisco VA Medical Center’s Faculty Hospital Medicine Group, I attend on a range of inpatient services including our medicine ward service, a traditional teaching service, the Faculty Hospitalist Service, an attending-only service, the Co-Management Service, a consultative service for peri-operative patients, and our Swing Service, where I serve as Transfer Attending, Medicine Consult attending, and Procedure attending, while admitting patients and supporting the on-call team. A significant portion of our clinical care at the SFVA is focused on patients who are facing a myriad of social and structural barriers that impact their health--we work to bring a team-based, interprofessional approach to our partnership with these patients to address both their acute medical needs and upstream determinants of health.

    EDUCATIONAL PURSUITS:
    My interest in medical education began in my year as a chief resident, and has become the cornerstone of my career. From 2013 through 2020, I served as the Associate Program Director for PRIME, a VA-based Area of Distinction for internal medicine residents offering training in understanding the medical literature, designing clinical research, and expanding clinical skills. In this role, I developed a longitudinal clinical reasoning series and a career series dedicated to building tools for successful academic careers.

    As the first theme lead for Clinical Reasoning within the School of Medicine's Clinical Microsystem Clerkship (CMC), and Design Lead and inaugural Director for a capstone course for our pre-clerkship students, the Diagnostic Reasoning (DR) Block (launched in 2017 and served as course director through 2022), I had the opportunity to develop a novel, longitudinal curriculum focused on building foundational skills in clinical reasoning.

    I pair my interest in clinical reasoning education with a focus on improving diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism/anti-oppression within medical education. In particular, I am interested in exploring how to bring an anti-oppressive lens to how we teach and practice team-based clinical reasoning, with the patient and their family at the heart of the team. I am currently Director of the School of Medicine’s Anti-Oppression Curriculum Initiative (AOCI). Through this role I am honored to collaborate with faculty, students, staff, and community members to elevate the School of Medicine’s emphasis on justice, equity, anti-racism and anti-oppression across the entire four-year curriculum.

    SCHOLARLY INTERESTS:
    I am interested in the intersection between communication, diversity, equity, inclusion, and clinical reasoning, as well as how we can bring an anti-oppression lens to medical education. Highlights of my current projects include:

    • Considering how traditional, 'cognitive' aspects of reasoning link with relationship-centered communication with patients, and how we incorporate issues of diversity, equity and inclusion when we teach about and engage in clinical reasoning

    • Developing approaches and tools to assist with review and adaptation of curricula to move towards anti-racism and anti-oppression in medical education (both in content and pedagogy)

    Collapse ORNG Applications 
    Collapse Featured Publications

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    Collapse Bibliographic 
    Collapse Publications
    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.
    Newest   |   Oldest   |   Most Cited   |   Most Discussed   |   Timeline   |   Field Summary   |   Plain Text
    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. Academic Leadership Academy Summer Program: Clerkship Transition Preparation for Underrepresented in Medicine Medical Students. Teach Learn Med. 2023 Oct 27; 1-14. Connor DM, Fernandez A, Alba-Nguyen S, Collins S, Teherani A. PMID: 37886897.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    
    2. Moving upstream to address diagnostic disparities. BMJ Qual Saf. 2023 11; 32(11):620-622. Connor DM, Dhaliwal G. PMID: 37414556.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
    3. Five strategies for clinicians to advance diagnostic excellence. BMJ. 2022 02 16; 376:e068044. Singh H, Connor DM, Dhaliwal G. PMID: 35172968.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 14     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    4. A clinical reasoning curriculum for medical students: an interim analysis. Diagnosis (Berl). 2021 12 14; 9(2):265-273. Connor DM, Narayana S, Dhaliwal G. PMID: 34904425.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 1     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    5. Emphasizing Empathy in Communicating About Uncertainty by Using a Dialogic Approach. Acad Med. 2021 07 01; 96(7):931. Chou CL, Connor DM, Santhosh L. PMID: 34183477.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
    6. Acknowledging our History and Moving Toward Equity and Justice in Medical Education. San Francisco Marin Medicine. 2021; 94(2):10-11. DM Connor. . View Publication.
    7. Clinical Reasoning as a Core Competency. Acad Med. 2020 08; 95(8):1166-1171. Connor DM, Durning SJ, Rencic JJ. PMID: 31577583.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 16     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    8. Off Trail, On Track: an Exercise in Clinical Reasoning. J Gen Intern Med. 2019 10; 34(10):2282-2287. Zejnullahu K, Santhosh L, Mourad M, Connor DM. PMID: 31270781; PMCID: PMC6816762.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
    9. Diagnostic uncertainty: from education to communication. Diagnosis (Berl). 2019 06 26; 6(2):121-126. Santhosh L, Chou CL, Connor DM. PMID: 30851157.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 12     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    10. A Curriculum for Diagnostic Reasoning: JGIM's Exercises in Clinical Reasoning. J Gen Intern Med. 2019 03; 34(3):344-345. Subramanian A, Connor DM, Berger G, Lessing JN, Mehta N, Manesh R, Kohlwes J. PMID: 30334181; PMCID: PMC6420586.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
    11. Blind Obedience and an Unnecessary Workup for Hypoglycemia: A Teachable Moment. JAMA Intern Med. 2018 02 01; 178(2):279-280. Wang EY, Patrick L, Connor DM. PMID: 29181533.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
    12. When the Script Doesn't Fit: An Exercise in Clinical Reasoning. J Gen Intern Med. 2017 07; 32(7):836-840. Wheeler DJ, Cascino T, Sharpe BA, Connor DM. PMID: 28337688; PMCID: PMC5481232.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 3     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    13. Improving clerkship preparedness: a hospital medicine elective for pre-clerkship students. Med Educ Online. 2017; 22(1):1307082. Connor DM, Conlon PJ, O'Brien BC, Chou CL. PMID: 28395598; PMCID: PMC5419300.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 4     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    14. Does Research Training During Residency Promote Scholarship and Influence Career Choice? A Cross-Sectional Analysis of a 10-Year Cohort of the UCSF-PRIME Internal Medicine Residency Program. Teach Learn Med. 2016 Jul-Sep; 28(3):314-9. Kohlwes J, O'Brien B, Stanley M, Grant R, Shunk R, Connor D, Cornett P, Hollander H. PMID: 27143394.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 7     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    15. The Unbefriended Patient: An Exercise in Ethical Clinical Reasoning. J Gen Intern Med. 2016 Jan; 31(1):128-32. Connor DM, Elkin GD, Lee K, Thompson V, Whelan H. PMID: 26438516; PMCID: PMC4699999.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 6     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    16. When less is more for the struggling clinical reasoner. Diagnosis (Berl). 2015 Sep 01; 2(3):159-162. Connor DM, Dhaliwal G. PMID: 29540031.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 4     Fields:    
    17. Impact of automatic orders to discontinue vancomycin therapy on vancomycin use in an antimicrobial stewardship program. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2007 Dec; 28(12):1408-10. Connor DM, Binkley S, Fishman NO, Gasink LB, Linkin D, Lautenbach E. PMID: 17994524.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 5     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    18. Kappa opioid receptors in the rostral ventromedial medulla of male and female rats. J Comp Neurol. 2007 Jan 20; 500(3):465-76. Drake CT, De Oliveira AX, Harris JA, Connor DM, Winkler CW, Aicher SA. PMID: 17120286.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 8     Fields:    Translation:AnimalsCells
    19. Testosterone decreases the potential for song plasticity in adult male zebra finches. Horm Behav. 2003 Dec; 44(5):402-12. Williams H, Connor DM, Hill JW. PMID: 14644634.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 14     Fields:    Translation:Animals
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