Brook Calton, MD, MHS
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Palliative Care Specialist
Dr. Brook Calton is an Associate Clinical Professor in the UCSF Division of Palliative Medicine. She is an outpatient palliative care specialist, program developer, and educator.
Clinical Work and Program Leadership
Dr. Calton's clinical and program development work focuses on ensuring that all seriously ill patients have access to palliative care when and where they need it. Dr. Calton aims to use the programs she leads to: provide the highest quality care to patients and their families, serve as a model for national palliative care programming, and function as a platform for training the next wave of practitioners.
Dr. Calton directs home-based palliative care services for UCSF. Dr. Calton and her interprofessional team of palliative care physicians, social workers, nurses, and chaplains care for homebound UCSF patients, providing specialized symptom management, understanding what is most important to patients and families, collaborating with patients' caregivers and outpatient providers, and facilitating care transitions when patients are hospitalized or discharged to facilities. Dr. Calton also serves as the Medical Director for UCSF patients enrolled in By the Bay Health, an innovative home-based palliative care pilot program shared between UCSF and Hospice by the Bay for Blue Shield of California, San Francisco Health Plan, and Partnership Health Plan members. Her program development and research efforts have been supported by UCSF Tideswell, the Mount Zion Health Fund, the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF), and the Cambia Foundation.
Dr. Calton cares for patients a in the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center Symptom Management Service (SMS) at Mission Bay and within the UCSF Brain Tumor Center. She also supervises palliative medicine fellows in the outpatient setting.
Medical Education Endeavors
Dr. Calton's medical education efforts center on preparing trainees and providers to communicate compassionately and clearly with seriously ill patients and their families. Dr. Calton developed and directs the UCSF third-year medical student standardized patient program on Serious Illness Communication. She has led curriculum development efforts in the Internal Medicine Residency on serious illness communication and developed an innovative curriculum that prepares Palliative Medicine and Geriatric fellows to teach on the topic of serious illness communication.
