Steven Pantilat

Steven Pantilat, MD, is a Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, the Kates-Burnard and Hellman Distinguished Professor in Palliative Care, and the inaugural chief of the UCSF Division of Palliative Medicine founded in 2018. The UCSF Palliative Care Service received a Circle of Life Award in recognition of excellence and innovation from the American Hospital Association in 2007. Dr. Pantilat is a palliative care physician and a hospitalist and is an internationally recognized expert in both hospital medicine and Palliative Care. 

His book for the public about living well with serious illness, titled “Life After the Diagnosis: Expert Advice on Living Well with Serious Illness for Patients and their Caregivers,” was published by DaCapo Lifelong Books in 2017. He has also published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers, authored two dozen book chapters, and co-edited with colleagues at UCSF a textbook on palliative care titled “Care at the Close of Life,” and in 2015, the textbook “Hospital-Based Palliative Medicine.” Dr. Pantilat and his team at UCSF were featured in the Academy Award-nominated Netflix original short documentary, "End Game."

Dr. Pantilat is the Director of the UCSF Palliative Care Leadership Center, which has trained teams from over 200 hospitals across the country on establishing Palliative Care Services. He consults with hospitals and health systems nationally to help them establish, implement and grow palliative care programs. He is also the Director of the Palliative Care Quality Network, a national collaboration of over 85 Palliative Care teams focused on improving the quality of care for seriously ill people. 

Dr. Pantilat is Board Certified in Hospice and Palliative Medicine and in Internal Medicine with Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine. Dr. Pantilat was elected a Master of Hospital Medicine by the Society of Hospital Medicine in 2014 in recognition of his many contributions to the field. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. In 2007 he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar studying palliative care at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, University of Sydney, and Curtin University in Sydney, Australia. 

He served as President of the Society of Hospital Medicine from 2005-6, is a past member of the Board of Directors, and is the former Chair of the Ethics committee for the Society of Hospital Medicine. In 2011 Dr. Pantilat received a James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award in recognition of his work to improve the lives of Californians. In 2014, Dr. Pantilat received the Ritz E. Heerman Award from the California Hospital Association in recognition of his work to improve the quality of palliative care. 

Dr. Pantilat also serves as Chair of the Advisory Board for the Cambia Foundation’s Sojourn Scholars Leadership Award program and on the Steering committee of the Palliative Care Research Collaborative. Dr. Pantilat was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at UCSF and is a Faculty Scholar of the Project on Death in America. In 2015 he was named Best Doctor in Palliative Care by San Francisco Magazine and Marin Magazine and a Top Doctor for Cancer by Newsweek magazine. He has received five teaching awards from the medical students at UCSF for outstanding lectures and lecture series.