Mark Jacobson, MD

Dr. Jacobson is a clinician, educator, and researcher who has specialized in HIV/AIDS and its complications since joining the UCSF faculty in 1986. His earlier career involved leading multicenter, interventional trials that focused on developing effective treatments for AIDS-associated opportunistic infections. His subsequent research was translational, investigating protective immunity against chronic viral infections, in particular cytomegalovirus (CMV), HIV, and human papillomavirus (HPV). He now teaches medicine residents and medical students, provides clinical care and directs urgent care medical services for the Ward 86 HIV clinic at San Francisco General Hospital, and is the editor for the Ward 86 Medical Management Recommendations posted on UCSF’s HIV InSite website. Dr. Jacobson is also the author of Sensing Light, a novel about the unfolding of the AIDS epidemic in 1980s San Francisco from the perspective of front-line, treating physicians (see http://markajacobsonauthor.com/). In March, 2020, Dr. Jacobson was redeployed to Occupational Medicine division and in July, 2020, moved from the HIV/ID division to the Occupational Medicine, where he serves as the infectious diseases consultant for a team of MDs, NPs and RNs who manage employee COVID-19 health issues for all SF Department of Public Health facilities, including SF General Hospital. He currently staffs the Occupational Health Service COVID-19 and Vaccine Hotlines, has created and updates Hotline provider standard work guidance for testing/off-return to work decisions/management of COVID-19 vaccine adverse events, teaches Hotline providers, consults with Occupational Medicine leadership re policy changes and special issues that arise, and oversees a Vaccine Hotline, which he helped develop in December, 2020, for management of employees experiencing adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccination.