Sue Carlisle Retires, Leaving a Legacy of Accomplishment

Written by Andrew Schwartz.

On May 3, 2022, Sue Carlisle, PhD, MD, retired. A faculty member in the UCSF Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care and Vice Dean, UCSF School of Medicine at the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG), Carlisle’s life’s work, including more than 40 years at UCSF, has had a lasting impact on UCSF faculty, residents and medical students and also, perhaps most importantly, on the many patients in need served by ZSFG.

A Peripatetic Journey

Born in rural Louisiana to parents she calls “educational missionaries” – her father the principal of the local high school, her mother the English teacher and librarian – Carlisle’s graduating class contained 28 students. About half of them went to college, a huge percentage for that time and place, reflecting her parents’ powerful influence.

Carlisle had her sights set on medical school, but during her undergraduate years, she was steered away. “Little girls didn’t do that,” she says wryly. Instead, she graduated in three years and then earned a PhD in parasitology from Tulane University. A post-doctoral fellowship at Rice University led to a research and teaching position at Temple University Medical School, where she earned tenure before returning to her original dream. “I thought it was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says of her time earning a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. That degree launched her influential, if restless, UCSF career. She first completed a residency in medicine (1984) and a fellowship in critical care (1986). She spent a couple of years practicing primary care and internal medicine before again deciding she needed something else. She completed her UCSF anesthesia residency in 1990 before spending a decade practicing at what is now UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights.

In 1999, she moved to ZSFG to assume the role of chief of Anesthesia and, over the next decade, moved on to become associate dean for the School of Medicine at ZSFG, and eventually, in 2012, vice dean.

Leadership Built on Building Trust

“I have described the role of vice dean as liaison between the city and university, as well as between ZSFG and the university, the person trying to help make sure everyone is listening to everyone else,” says Carlisle.

But of course, it’s much more than that. Among her countless specific duties, Carlisle had to manage a $200 million plus annual budget for the affiliation agreement between UCSF and the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), oversee $150-200 million a year in research grants, play a central role in shepherding the building of a modern hospital, help ensure the installation of an entire new electronic health record system, and spend two decades spearheading the drive for a new research building.

Her ability to establish trusting and transparent lines of communication between key entities in a complicated relationship was essential to the successful completion of those duties. The challenges included managing staff who work for different bosses (the physicians for UCSF, but many others for the city of San Francisco), simplifying the way UCSF residents are paid and developing fruitful, collaborative relationships among administrative and budget teams from two sprawling organizations.

“The partnership that runs ZSFG now is so much more functional and less contentious than it used to be,” she says.

Research Building as Crowning Achievement

The new research building is especially close to her heart, and in many ways also a product of the trust Carlisle helped build. For decades, research at ZSFG had been centered in the old brick buildings on campus, which fail to meet modern standards for safety or 21st century research. Carlisle spent the better part of two decades advocating for a new building.

“There was some interest…in moving our researchers to Mission Bay, but the research we do here is so important to both the university and the city,” she says. Carlisle believed shifting research away from ZSFG would rob researchers of access to important patient populations and ZSFG patients of access to first-class care, including clinical trials, delivered by passionate, exceptional physicians. Eventually, her tenacity paid off. Carlisle views the world-class building, set to open in 2023 on city property, as an important part of her legacy.

And she is leaving ZSFG well positioned to succeed in the years ahead. She says her successor as vice dean, Elaina Fuentes-Afflick, MD, MPH, “is an internationally known clinician and researcher and has done marvelous things academically. I’m proud to have left her with a very deep bench and foundation; the group there is truly remarkable.”

A Lifetime of Achievement and Sacrifice

The tenacious approach Carlisle demonstrated over her 40-plus years at UCSF – and all she has accomplished in her career – certainly draws on her breadth of experience, but also circles back to her Louisiana childhood and the times in which she came of age. She says, “I think about something my father always said: ‘It's okay to fail, but it's not okay to quit.’ I probably internalized that…and for better or worse, I’ve felt a great responsibility, especially as a woman, to be a role model – and not quit.”        

That type of drive does not come without some personal sacrifice. Carlisle acknowledges that in her personal life, “I made some choices and decisions I wouldn't have made today.” Among the things she would not have changed, however, are the relationships with her co-workers. From her time in critical care at Parnassus through the present day, says Carlisle, “These were family life experiences for me…working with people who cared about each other and about the work they were doing very deeply.”     

And in retirement, she does not plan to sever all professional ties to UCSF. “I first set foot in the General in 1980 and I’ve had some sort of relationship with UCSF for 42 years. I really treasure that and would like to continue to do something that is useful for the university.”

For now though, says Carlisle, “I am taking deep breaths, planning a few little trips and enjoying watching the birds in my backyard. Things I haven't done as much of as I would like to do. Eventually, though, I will find something that will give me meaningful work because I'm just wired that way.”

Watch a fireside chat with Carlisle from the International Women's Day celebrations at UCSF in 2022.