Directors Corner
Moving Forward Together in Times of Upheaval
The recent months have brought significant uncertainty, marked by threats to our public health infrastructure, loss of funding, and the reduction of the essential public health workforce. These changes have jeopardized the long-standing, monumental efforts of the Centers for…
A Resolute Commitment to Health Equity
Happy New Year! We hope you had a relaxing holiday. We are deeply saddened by the devastating loss and destruction caused by the fires in Los Angeles. During this challenging time, please know that we hold our colleagues in LA close in our thoughts and prayers. Although we are…
SCLC’s strategic planning and new directions
We are halfway through 2024, and over the past 6 months SCLC has been busy developing a new strategic plan. Our world is constantly evolving, and tobacco products, policies, and behaviors are different from those even in the past 5 years. Updating our strategic plan will allow…
Director’s Corner for 2023 – A recap of my first year at SCLC
It is hard to believe that a year has gone by since I joined SCLC as its new Director. It has a been a year of growth, balance, and integration for me. I have started to connect the spaces that I regularly occupy as a general internist, educator, and researcher into the work of…
Achieving equity through championing tobacco cessation – SCLC’s mission 20 years later
I became a primary care physician to take care of people long term. I became a public health researcher to change the narrative of health for our disproportionately impacted populations, firmly believing that health equity is rooted in all our populations thriving. The most…
Dr. Maya Vijayaraghavan’s First Director’s Corner
I am thrilled and honored to join the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center as its new Director. I started my medical and public health career over 2 decades ago as a street outreach worker for people experiencing homelessness in Boston, MA. This community included migrant…
Dr. Schroeder's Final Director’s Corner
When we started the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center in Jan. 2003, I never thought I would stay so long as its director. This is my final Director’s Corner column, because in January, 2022, the talented tobacco control expert Pamela Ling, MD, Professor of Medicine at UCSF and…
Special Announcement: Change of Plans at SCLC
In July, we had announced that Nancy Rigotti would be taking over as director of SCLC beginning January, 2022. Alas, that will not happen. The reasons are stated below by Dr. Rigotti:“I am sorry to tell you that after much reflection, I’ve decided that I cannot take on the…
Collateral Damage: COVID-19 Stalls Progress on Smoking Cessation
A hidden but potentially disastrous consequence of the COVID-19 epidemic is its effect on smoking. Although the 2020 data on smoking prevalence have yet to be released, there is disturbing evidence that the impressive recent declines in adult and youth smoking may have stalled…
Moving Forward In Spite Of It All
Like everyone else, the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at UCSF has had to adapt to new ways of doing our work. Working remotely has brought its set of challenges, and we were concerned that the press of attending to the Covid-19 epidemic would sideline smoking cessation…
