Associate Professor

Dr. Carly Zapata is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Palliative Medicine. She serves as an attending physician on the Palliative Care Consult Service at Parnassus, the Symptom Management Service in the Helen Diller Cancer Center, and the Outpatient Palliative Care Service at Parnassus. She also serves as the director of the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship at UCSF.

Dr. Zapata received her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University and attended medical school at Harvard University, where she also completed a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She did her internal medicine residency at UCSF followed by a year as a Chief Resident at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital before completing her Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship at UCSF. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Dr. Zapata's academic interests include assessing and addressing the needs of family caregivers of patients with serious illness and health care disparities in palliative care.
Education
2018 - Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion Training, University of California
2017 - Palliative Medicine Fellowship, University of California, San Francisco
2016 - Chief Resident, University of California, San Francisco
2015 - Internal Medicine Residency, University of California, San Francisco
MD, 2012 - , Harvard Medical School
MPH, 2012 - , Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
B.A., 2006 - , Johns Hopkins University
Publications

  1. Wang Y, Sudore RL, Zapata C, Martinez R, Gonzalez J, Le V, Quinn M, Huang C, Perez-Vaughan C, Pantilat SZ, Lyles CR, Ritchie CS, Nouri S. Telehealth Care for People With Serious Illnesses and Preferred Languages Other Than English. 2025. PMID: 40900593


  2. Calton BA, Nouri S, Davila C, Kotwal A, Zapata C, Bischoff KE. Strategies to Make Telemedicine a Friend, Not a Foe, in the Provision of Accessible and Equitable Cancer Care. 2023. PMID: 37958296


  3. Bischoff KE, Vanegas G, O'Riordan DL, Sumser B, Long J, Lin J, Berkey AR, Kobayashi E, Zapata C, Rabow MW, Pantilat SZ. A Systematic Approach to Assessing and Addressing Palliative Care Needs in an Outpatient Population. 2023. PMID: 37380147


  5. Zapata CB, Dionne-Odom JN, Harris HA, Kalanithi L, Lin J, Bischoff K, Fazzalaro K, Pantilat SZ. Honoring What We Say We Do: Developing Real-World Tools for Routine Family Caregiver Assessment and Support in Outpatient Palliative Care. 2023. PMID: 36608316


  6. Bischoff KE, Lin J, Cohen E, O'Riordan DL, Meister S, Zapata C, Sicotte J, Lindenfeld P, Calton B, Pantilat SZ. Outpatient Palliative Care for Noncancer Illnesses: One Program's Experience with Implementation, Impact, and Lessons Learned. 2022. PMID: 35442773


  7. Fahrner-Scott K, Zapata C, O'Riordan DL, Cohen E, Rosow L, Pantilat SZ, Lomen-Hoerth C, Bischoff KE. Embedded Palliative Care for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Pilot Program and Lessons Learned. 2022. PMID: 36157626


  8. Huppert LA, Hsu G, Elnachef N, Flint L, Frank JA, Gensler LS, Hsiao EC, Khanna RR, Qasim A, Schwartz BS, Widera E, Zapata C, Babik JM. A single center evaluation of applicant experiences in virtual interviews across eight internal medicine subspecialty fellowship programs. 2021. PMID: 34187346


  9. Bischoff KE, Choi S, Su A, Cohen E, O'Riordan DL, Oettel E, Blachman M, Meister S, Zapata C, Lindenfeld P, Calton B, Witt L, Pantilat SZ, Shah RJ. Better Together: A Mixed-Methods Study of Palliative Care Co-Management for Patients with Interstitial Lung Disease. 2021. PMID: 34115958


  10. Zapata C, Doyle K, deLima Thomas J, Biewald M, Lindenberger E. Better in Virtually Every Way. 2021. PMID: 34061673


  11. Bischoff KE, Zapata C, Sedki S, Ursem C, O'Riordan DL, England AE, Thompson N, Alfaro A, Rabow MW, Atreya CE. Embedded palliative care for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer: a mixed-methods pilot study. 2020. PMID: 32285263


  13. Zapata CB. Survival Techniques. 2018. PMID: 29872862


  17. Percac-Lima S, Benner CS, Lui R, Aldrich LS, Oo SA, Regan N, Chabner BA. The impact of a culturally tailored patient navigator program on cervical cancer prevention in Latina women. 2013. PMID: 23621746