Robert Wachter, M.D.

Robert Wachter, MD is professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF); in 2021, the department was ranked the best in the nation by US News & World Report.

Wachter is author of 300 articles and six books, including the New York Times science bestseller, The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age. He coined the term “hospitalist” in 1996 and is often considered the “father” of the hospitalist field, the fastest growing specialty in the history of modern medicine. He is past president of the Society of Hospital Medicine, past chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

In 2015, Modern Healthcare magazine ranked him as the most influential physician-executive in the U.S. In 2020-22, his tweets on Covid-19 were viewed more than 400 million times by 260,000 followers and served as a trusted source of information on the clinical, public health, and policy issues surrounding the pandemic.

He has made scores of media appearances, including on Fresh Air, All Things Considered, the Rachel Maddow Show, Fareed Zakaria GPS, and Pod Save America, and has been quoted hundreds of times in publications that include the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and the New York Times. He has advised many companies on their digital strategy, including Google and Teladoc. With his leadership roles in academia, hospital medicine, quality and patient safety, digital health, and Covid, Wachter is often sought after for his dynamic, thoughtful, accessible, and humorous takes on healthcare’s current state and its future opportunities and challenges.