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Amanda Sammann, M.D., M.P.H.
- Associate Professor of Surgery
- Division of General Surgery
- Founder and Executive Director, The Better Lab
Contact Information
Academic Office
1001 Potrero Avenue, 3A
San Francisco, CA 94110
amanda.sammann@ucsf.edu
Clinic Appointments
(415) 206-8674
1001 Potrero Avenue, 3A
San Francisco, CA 94110
amanda.sammann@ucsf.edu
Clinic Appointments
(415) 206-8674
Education
- Stanford University, B.A. with Honors, 2001
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, M.P.H, 2004
University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, M.D., 2008
Residencies
- University of California, San Francisco, Intern, General Surgery, 2008-2009
- University of California, San Francisco, Resident, General Surgery, 2009-2015
Biography
- Amanda Sammann, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of general surgery at the University of California, San Francisco and the Founder and Executive Director of The Better Lab; a venture that uses design to study and fix health care challenges. Dr. Sammann is a general surgeon who practices trauma surgery, acute care surgery and surgical critical care at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG).
- Dr. Sammann received a bachelor's degree in human biology from Stanford University, a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University and a Medical Degree from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She completed her surgical training at UCSF and her critical care fellowship at Oregon Health & Sciences University. Dr. Sammann also spent two years as the Medical Fellow and Medical Director at the Silicon Valley design firm, IDEO.
- Dr. Sammann has spent a lifetime trying to make things better. She has built novel content for health websites, developed surgical training curriculum, designed medical products and fixed dozens of health care systems challenges. Dr. Sammann has expertise in Human Centered Design (HCD) and is leading research at ZSFG to implement and study the HCD process in the health care setting. She lectures on innovation and design locally and nationally.
Research Overview
Dr. Sammann is the Founder and Executive Director of The Better Lab, a multidisciplinary venture that conducts human centered design research. The goal of her research is to develop new ways to fix health care challenges through greater empathy and better design and to study these novel methods and their outcomes with rigorous public health methodologies. Early research initiatives are focused on health care systems quality improvement at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.
Publications
MOST RECENT PUBLICATIONS FROM A TOTAL OF 39
Data provided by UCSF Profiles, powered by CTSI
- Liao EN, Chehab LZ, Neville K, Liao J, Patel D, Sammann A. Using a human-centered, mixed methods approach to understand the patient waiting experience and its impact on medically underserved Populations. BMC Health Serv Res. 2022 Nov 22; 22(1):1388. View in PubMed
- Liao EN, Chehab LZ, Ossmann M, Alpers B, Patel D, Sammann A. Using Architectural Mapping to Understand Behavior and Space Utilization in a Surgical Waiting Room of a Safety Net Hospital. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Oct 25; 19(21). View in PubMed
- Elizabeth N. Liao, Lara Z. Chehab, Michelle Ossmann, Benjamin Alpers, Devika Patel, Amanda Sammann. Using Architectural Mapping to Understand Behavior and Space Utilization in a Surgical Waiting Room of a Safety Net Hospital. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022 Oct 25; 19(21):13870. View in PubMed
- Schmidt CN, Patel D, Alpers BS, Spaulding M, Ocegueda L, Thomas M, Sammann A, Briscoe H. Facilitating Integrated Perinatal Care for Families Affected by Substance Use. J Addict Med. 2023 Jan-Feb 01; 17(1):1-3. View in PubMed
- Langness S, Rajapuram N, Marshall M, Rahman AS, Sammann A. Risk factors associated with student distress in medical school: Associations with faculty support and availability of wellbeing resources. PLoS One. 2022; 17(4):e0265869. View in PubMed
- View All Publications
In the News
- UCSF Department of Surgery - - May 18, 2020"Leaders at a 150-bed community hospital in California partnered with a collective of human-centered designers to rapidly address a sudden drop in emergency department visits after a statewide stay-at-home order was issued. The initiative developed targeted messaging to assuage patient fears about safety and remind patients not to ignore heart and stroke symptoms." Coauthors of this NEJM Catalyst paper include plastic surgery resident Dr. Laura Wong (first author), trauma surgeon & Exec. [...]
- Department of Surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General - December 05, 2018Trauma surgeons at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center have been among the strongest proponents for physicians speaking out on the issue of gun violence and conducting research to reduce suffering and prevent needless and tragic deaths. They have harnessed the power of Twitter in the service of community outreach and effecting social change. Notably, Rachael A. Callcut, M.D., MSPH was among the group that created the Twitter handle, @ThisIsOurLane and Andre Campbell, [...]
- UCSF Surgical Innovations - - May 22, 2018On May 17, the Second Annual UCSF Engineering for Children's Health Symposium was held at Mission Bay Conference Center. Over one hundred clinicians, engineers, scientists, administrators, industry professionals, and government partners gathered to discuss groundbreaking research and developing technologies in pediatric medicine. The event commenced with opening remarks by Hanmin Lee, MD, Surgeon-in-Chief of the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals and Professor and Chief of the UCSF Division [...]
- UCSF Department of Surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General - - March 14, 2017Amanda Sammann, M.D., M.P.H., a UCSF trauma surgeon based at Zuckerberg San Francisco General, recently launched The Better Lab, an innovative research program based on human-centered design in healthcare. With her co-founders, Design Director Susan Dix Lyons and Researcher Lara Chehab, The Better Lab is focused on addressing health care challenges through greater empathy and better design using rigorous public health methodologies. A recent blogpost on the site by Susan Dix Lyons, How The [...]
- UCSF Department of Surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General - - March 14, 2017Amanda Sammann, M.D., M.P.H., Executive Director of The The Better Lab, and an Assistant Professor of Surgery based at ZSFG, has contributed a work to the Hearts of San Francisco, a public art installation started by the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation in 2004. Dr. Sammann's hand-crafted heart, called "Stem to Stern," powerfully memorializes the patients she served as a resident at San Francisco General Hospital a decade ago – and serves as a poetic homecoming to the institution where [...]