Lekshmi Santhosh, MD, MA
Associate Professor
Dr. Lekshmi Santhosh is an Associate Professor in Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine and Hospital Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco. She received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School and completed her Internal Medicine residency, Chief Residency, and Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Fellowship at UCSF. During her fellowship training, she received a Master's in Education from UC Berkeley. Clinically, she attends in the Medical ICU, the Neuro-ICU, the Hospital Medicine teaching service, and in the outpatient Pulmonary clinic. She is also the founder and medical director of the post-ICU/post-COVID OPTIMAL clinic. Her educational leadership roles at UCSF include Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency, Associate Program Director for our Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Fellowship, and Director of the Department of Medicine Grand Rounds. She has published extensively in the realm of medical education and issues around equity in medicine; her primary scholarly interests are related to ICU transitions of care, women in leadership, clinical reasoning, and subspecialty career choice. Nationally, she is one of the inaugural National Academy of Medicine Scholars in Diagnostic Excellence and is the Chair-Elect for the American Thoracic Society Section on Medical Education. She has recently been awarded the Gold-Headed Cane Endowed Education Chair in Internal Medicine and plans to use her chair to develop programs to support our residents and fellows during career transitions.