Steven Pantilat, MD is the Kates-Burnard and Hellman Distinguished Professor in Palliative Care and the inaugural Chief of the Division of Palliative Medicine at UCSF. Dr. Pantilat is an internationally recognized expert in Palliative Care. Dr. Pantilat has published over 120 peer-reviewed scientific papers, authored two dozen book chapters, and co-edited with colleagues at UCSF two textbooks on palliative care titled, “Care at the Close of Life” and “Hospital Based Palliative Medicine.” Dr. Pantilat is the Board Chair for the Palliative Care Quality Collaborative, an national organization dedicated to improving the quality of care for seriously ill people and their families. He chairs the Advisory Board for the Cambia Health Foundation’s Sojourns Scholar Leadership Program and co-directs the UCSF Palliative Care Leadership Center. He is the author of, “Life After the Diagnosis: Expert Advice on Living Well with Serious Illness for Patients and their Caregivers” published by DaCapo Lifelong Books in 2017. Dr. Pantilat and the palliative care team at UCSF are featured in the Academy Award-nominated, Netflix documentary, “End Game.”

Dr. Pantilat is Board Certified in Hospice and Palliative Medicine and in Internal Medicine with Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine. Dr. Pantilat was elected a Master of Hospital Medicine by the Society of Hospital Medicine in 2014 in recognition of his many contributions to the field and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. In 2007 he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar studying palliative care at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, University of Sydney, and Curtin University in Sydney, Australia. He served as President of the Society of Hospital Medicine in 2005-6, and is a past member of the Board of Directors, and the former Chair of the Ethics committee for the Society of Hospital Medicine. Dr. Pantilat serves on the UCSF Medical Center Ethics Committee.

In 2011 Dr. Pantilat received a James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award in recognition of his work to improve the lives of Californians and in 2014 Dr. Pantilat received the Ritz E. Heerman Award from the California Hospital Association in recognition of his work to improve the quality of palliative care. Dr. Pantilat was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at UCSF and is a Faculty Scholar of the Project on Death in America. He has received five teaching awards from the medical students at UCSF for outstanding lectures and lecture series.