June 28, 2012
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| Dr. Karim Chamie |
On behalf of the UCLA Department of Urology and the UCLA Institute of Urologic Oncology, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Karim Chamie, MD, MSHS as Assistant Professor-in-Residence. He will also serve as the Departmental Quality Officer for UCLA Urology. He will join the UCLA faculty on July 1, 2012.
Dr. Chamie earned his Bachelor of Science with honors in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from UCLA and his Medical Doctorate from the University of Southern California. He earned his Master of Science in Health Services from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He completed his surgery and urology residency training at the University of California, Davis. He is now completing a three-year Society of Urologic Oncology fellowship in urologic oncology and health services research at UCLA Urology. Dr. Chamie will spend the preponderance of his clinical time at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center practicing urologic oncology and general urology. He will also serve the public as an attending urologist at the Olive View-UCLA Medical Center.
His special clinical and research interests are in bladder cancer.
Dr. Chamie's academic career thus far has been prolific. To support the two research years of his fellowship, he received a highly competitive NRSA award from the NIH. His proposal to study quality of care in patients with bladder cancer earned a perfect score of all ones. He also received prestigious post-doctoral funding awards from the American Cancer Society and from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.
During his first year at UCLA, while intensely engaged in the rigorous MSHS degree program, he honed his skills in applied health services research, health policy, comparative effectiveness, and the translational population sciences. During that year, he also wrote two successful grant proposals to the NCI's SEER Registry Program to cover the research costs of two of his main analyses in health care quality.
During his second year here, he carried out several health services research projects focused on the quality of care patients receive for bladder cancer. His principal interest has been in studying (1) factors driving the widespread underutilization of peri-operative intravesical chemotherapy after newly diagnosed tumors, (2) the clinical and cost implications of incomplete transurethral staging of bladder tumors, and (3) the outcomes of varying long-term surveillance strategies in patients with bladder cancer.
Dr. Chamie will serve in all aspects of executing the mission of UCLA Urology: to improve urological health and health care, we seek to create world leaders in urological health and science, discover the basis for urological health and cures for urological disease, optimize urological health through community partnerships, and heal humankind one urological patient at a time.
We enthusiastically welcome Dr. Chamie to his academic home at UCLA Urology.
Mark S. Litwin, MD, MPH
Professor and Chair
Department of Urology
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Professor of Health Services
UCLA Fielding School of Public Health
