Raj S. Pruthi, MD, MHA, FACS
Professor and Chair
UCSF Department of Urology
San Francisco, CA
Dr. Pruthi is professor and chair of the Department of Urology at the University of California at San Francisco. He previously served as chair of the Department of Urology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC Chapel Hill), where he was on faculty for nineteen years.
Nationally, Dr. Pruthi serves in a number of professional and academic capacities:
He was a member of the ABU/AUA Examination Committee and serves as an examiner for the Certifying Exam for the ABU. He also on the Executive Committee for the Society of Academic urology and currently serves as the organization’s treasurer. He is also the Chair of the Advisory Council for Urology of the American College of Surgeons, and also serves on the Board of Governors for the College.
He served on the Guidelines Committee and helped to develop the American Urological Associations Guidelines on the Management of Non-muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer and also served on the Bladder Cancer Guidelines Committee of the International Consultation on Urological Diseases.
He is an elected member of the Urologic Research Society, the Society of Pelvic surgeons, the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, and the Clinical Society of Genitourinary Surgeons.
Dr. Pruthi is a graduate of Stanford University, where he double majored in economics and in biology and became interested in health economics. He received his MD degree from the Duke University School of Medicine. Following medical school, he completed his residency and post-graduate training at Stanford University. Most recently, he completed the executive MHA program at UNC.
Dr. Pruthi is a recognized expert in minimally-invasive, robotic surgery for prostate and bladder cancer. He incorporates nerve-sparing techniques to improve recovery and long-term quality of life. He is focused on optimizing a patient’s surgical journey and integration of patient-reported outcomes to improve his patients’ experiences and recovery. He and collaborators study the use of health-information technology to provide early feedback so as to address preventable complications and reduce readmissions. He is committed to compassionate, comprehensive, innovative, and patient-centered care that balances long-term survivorship with a high-level of functioning and an optimal quality of life.
In his role as chair, Dr. Pruthi has been tackling health economic issues to better understand the drivers of faculty productivity, compensation, and burnout. He has explored urologic workforce, projections, gender disparity issues, factors impacting career earnings, predictors of dissatisfaction and burnout, and understanding the impact of workflow initiatives, including the implementation of scribes. His work in these areas has been recognized nationally and has had an impact on the understanding of the practice of urology.