Dean Schillinger, MD
Dean Schillinger, M.D. is Professor of Medicine in Residence at the University of California San Francisco, and Chief of the UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH). He is a practicing primary care physician at SFGH, an urban public hospital, where he sees patients, teaches in the primary care residency program, and conducts research. Dr. Schillinger served as Chief of the Diabetes Prevention and Control Program for the California Department of Public Health from 2008-2013. Dr. Schillinger carries out research related to healthcare for vulnerable populations, and is an internationally recognized expert in health communication science. His work focuses on literacy, health communication, and chronic disease prevention and management. He has been honored with the 2003 Institute for Healthcare Advancement Research Award; the 2008 Research Award in Safety and Quality from the National Patient Safety Foundation; the 2009 Engel Award in Health Communication Research; the 2010 Outstanding Bay Area Clinical Research Mentor; and authored a 2012 commissioned IOM paper on the attributes of Health Literate Healthcare Organizations. Dr. Schillinger is the founding director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, whose mission is to carry out innovative research to prevent and treat chronic disease in populations for whom social conditions often conspire to both promote chronic disease and make its management more challenging. Dr. Schillinger currently directs the CVP Health Communications Program. He is the co-founder of TheBiggerPicture.org, a social marketing diabetes prevention campaign to empower minority youth to change the conversation about diabetes and become agents of positive social change. In 2013 he received the Everett M Rogers Award from the American Public Health Association in recognition of his lifelong contributions to advancing the study and practice of public health communication.