Research Summary

Julie Ann Sosa, MD MA FACS is the Leon Goldman MD Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where she is also a Professor in the Department of Medicine and affiliated faculty for the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. Dr Sosa came to UCSF in 2018 from Duke. 

Her clinical interest is in endocrine surgery, with a focus in thyroid cancer. She is an NIH- and FDA-funded investigator and author of more than 400 peer-reviewed publications and 80 book chapters and reviews, all largely focused on outcomes research, health care delivery, hyperparathyroidism, and thyroid cancer, with a focus on clinical trials. She has authored or edited 7 books. Dr Sosa is the immediate Past-President of the American Thyroid Association (ATA) and serves on the Board of Directors/Executive Council of the ATA and International Thyroid Oncology Group; for the ATA, she is chairing the committee responsible for writing the next iteration of differentiated thyroid cancer guidelines. She is an editor of Greenfield’s Surgery: Scientific Principles and Practice and just completed her term as Editor-in-Chief of the World Journal of Surgery. She has mentored more than 90 students, residents, and fellows, for which she was recognized with induction as a full member to the American College of Surgeons Academy of Master Educators in 2020, and by the ATA with the Lewis E. Braverman Distinguished Lectureship Award in 2017 and its Distinguished Service Award in 2022. She received the Chancellor’s Diversity Award in 2022 for the Advancement of Women at UCSF. 

Dr Sosa was born in Montreal and raised in upstate New York. She received her AB at Princeton, MA at Oxford, and MD at Johns Hopkins, where she completed the Halsted residency and a fellowship.

Research Funding

  • April 1, 2023 - March 1, 2028 - Addressing Surgical Disparities at the Root; Working to improve diversity in the surgical workforce , Co-Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH NIMHD; Cornell University, Sponsor Award ID: R01MD018464
  • September 1, 2019 - July 31, 2023 - A novel natural history study of medullary thyroid carcinoma: Incorporating the patient perspective to inform advanced disease management , Co-Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R01FD006650
  • January 16, 2015 - February 28, 2017 - Single cell analysis of intratumoral heterogeneity in parathyroid neoplasia , Co-Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R21CA192004

Education

Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, AB, 06/1988, Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs
Worcester College, University of Oxford, MA, 06/1990, Human Sciences
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, MD, 06/1994, Medicine
Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD, Other training, 06/1998, Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program
Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD, Resident, 06/2001, Halsted Residency in General Surgery

Honors & Awards

  • 2022
    Distinguished Service Award, American Thyroid Association
  • 2022
    Castle Connolly Top Doctor in the Bay Area
  • 2022
    UCSF Chancellor's Award for the Advancement of Women
  • 2021
    Moonshot Award, California Academy of Sciences and the Association of Science Technology Centers IF/THEN Gender Equity Project
  • 2019, 2020, 2021
    Castle Connolly's Exceptional Women in Medicine
  • 2020
    Mentoring and Teaching Honor and Official Member of the Dept of Medicine, given by the residents and Women in Leadership Development (WILD) group to recognize outstanding teaching, mentoring and professionalism by a faculty member, UCSF, 1/24/20
  • 2020
    UCSF Muriel Steele Society Honor Roll, for mentorship and sponsorship of women faculty and learners
  • 2020
    Elected full Member, Academy of Master Surgeon Educators, American College of Surgeons
  • 2017
    Woman of the Year in Thyroidology, American Thyroid Assn, Victoria, CA
  • 2017
    Lewis E. Braverman Distinguished Lectureship Award, American Thyroid Assn, Victoria, CA
  • 2016
    PO Granberg Lecturer, Swedish Society for Endocrine Surgeons
  • 2016
    Invited International Visitor, Younger Fellows Section, Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
  • 2015
    Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Class of 2016
  • 2015
    Distinguished Alumna Award, Johns Hopkins University
  • 2014
    Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars, Johns Hopkins University
  • 2010
    Association for Academic Surgery International Visiting Professorship Award (AAS/RACS)
  • 2006
    Dennis Jahnigen Career Development Award, American Geriatrics Association
  • 2005
    Research Career Development Award, Claude D. Pepper Center at Yale
  • 2005
    JJ Roslyn Faculty Research Award, Association for Academic Surgery
  • 2004
    John G Haddad Award, The Paget Foundation

Selected Publications

  1. Szabo Yamashita T, Williams-Perez SM, Ehsan S, Mulder M, Kronenfeld D, Huang CY, Zhao H, Merriman K, Peterson SK, Hu MI, Zafereo M, Sosa JA, Grubbs EG. The Multi-Institutional Medullary Thyroid Cancer Collaborative Registry: Can a Rare Tumor Registry Accurately Represent the Real-World Patient Population? Thyroid. 2024 Sep; 34(9):1117-1125.  View on PubMed
  2. Trang K, Stephens CQ, Flanagan C, Yap A, Brown A, Kelly Y, Yeo HL, Sosa JA, Kornblith LZ, Varma MG. Promoting Female Surgeons Through Structured Award Nominations. Ann Surg. 2024 Jul 02.  View on PubMed
  3. Mesiti A, Johnson J, Brouwer J, Shui AM, Yeo H, Sosa JA. The Effect of Intersectionality on Attrition among US General Surgery Trainees. Ann Surg. 2024 Jun 06.  View on PubMed
  4. Shirali AS, Hu MI, Chiang YJ, Graham PH, Fisher SB, Sosa JA, Perrier N, Brown S, Holla VR, Dadu R, Busaidy N, Sherman SI, Cabanillas M, Waguespack SG, Zafereo ME, Grubbs EG. Next-Generation Sequencing in Sporadic Medullary Thyroid Cancer Patients: Mutation Profile and Disease Aggressiveness. J Endocr Soc. 2024 Apr 06; 8(6):bvae048.  View on PubMed
  5. Johnson J, Mesiti A, Brouwer J, Shui AM, Sosa JA, Yeo HL. Surgeon Intersectionality and Academic Promotion and Retention in the US. JAMA Surg. 2024 Apr 01; 159(4):383-388.  View on PubMed
  6. Keenan BP, Sibley A, Zhang L, Westring AF, Velazquez AI, Bank EM, Bergsland EK, Boreta L, Conroy P, Daras M, Hermiston M, Hsu G, Paris PL, Piawah S, Sinha S, Sosa JA, Tsang M, Venook AP, Wong M, Yom SS, Van Loon K. Evaluation of Culture Conducive to Academic Success by Gender at a Comprehensive Cancer Center. Oncologist. 2024 Mar 04; 29(3):e351-e359.  View on PubMed
  7. Conroy PC, Wilhelm A, Rajwani T, Mulder M, Gosnell J, Shen WT, Duh QY, Roman S, Sosa JA. Nerve monitoring in endocrine surgery: Practice patterns differ among surgeons for parathyroidectomy and thyroidectomy. Surgery. 2024 Apr; 175(4):1040-1048.  View on PubMed
  8. Sosa JA, Mangurian C. Addressing Eldercare to Promote Gender Equity in Academic Medicine. JAMA. 2023 12 19; 330(23):2245-2246.  View on PubMed
  9. Ullmann TM, Sosa JA. Delay in Surgery for Papillary Thyroid Cancer: A Proxy for Lower-Quality Care? J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2023 Nov 17; 108(12):e1753-e1754.  View on PubMed
  10. Sosa JA. World Journal of Surgery is Pleased to Welcome Dr. Diamantis I. Tsilimigras as a New Assistant Editor for Visual Abstracts and Social Media to Our Leadership Team. World J Surg. 2023 Nov; 47(11):2599.  View on PubMed
  11. Wilhelm A, Conroy PC, Calthorpe L, Frye W, Sosa JA, Roman S. Routine use of intraoperative nerve monitoring is associated with a reduced risk of vocal cord dysfunction after thyroid cancer surgery. BMC Surg. 2023 Aug 02; 23(1):215.  View on PubMed
  12. Sosa JA. The World Journal of Surgery Welcomes Dr. Sherry Wren of the USA as a New Associate Editor. World J Surg. 2023 09; 47(9):2090.  View on PubMed
  13. Dimick JB, Harris C, Barrett M, Kent KC, Sosa JA, Farmer DL. American Surgical Association Presidential Session: Navigating the Collision of Corporate Medicine and Changing Workforce Expectations. Ann Surg. 2023 10 01; 278(4):471-478.  View on PubMed
  14. Baskin A, Sosa JA. Leveraging social media for mentorship in surgery. Surgery. 2023 08; 174(2):395-397.  View on PubMed
  15. Tu CL, Chang W, Sosa JA, Koh J. Digital spatial profiling of human parathyroid tumors reveals cellular and molecular alterations linked to vitamin D deficiency. PNAS Nexus. 2023 Mar; 2(3):pgad073.  View on PubMed
  16. Callison K, Pesko MF, Phillips S, Sosa JA. Cancer Screening after the Adoption of Paid-Sick-Leave Mandates. N Engl J Med. 2023 Mar 02; 388(9):824-832.  View on PubMed
  17. Sosa JA. The World Journal of Surgery Welcomes Professor Dileep N. Lobo of the UK as a New Associate Editor. World J Surg. 2023 03; 47(3):563.  View on PubMed
  18. Ullmann TM, Papaleontiou M, Sosa JA. Current Controversies in Low-Risk Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: Reducing Overtreatment in an Era of Overdiagnosis. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2023 01 17; 108(2):271-280.  View on PubMed
  19. Pugh CM, Kirton OC, Tuttle JEB, Maier RV, Hu YY, Stewart JH, Freischlag JA, Sosa JA, Vickers SM, Hawn MT, Eberlein TJ, Farmer DL, Higgins RS, Pellegrini CA, Roman SA, Crandall ML, De Virgilio CM, Tsung A, Britt LD. Addressing the Surgical Workplace: An Opportunity to Create a Culture of Belonging. Ann Surg. 2023 04 01; 277(4):551-556.  View on PubMed
  20. Collins CR, Abel MK, Shui A, Intinarelli G, Sosa JA, Wick EC. Preparing for participation in the centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' bundle care payment initiative-advanced for major bowel surgery. Perioper Med (Lond). 2022 Dec 09; 11(1):54.  View on PubMed

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