Sanziana Roman, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Division of General Surgery
Section of Endocrine Surgery
Director of Learning and Teaching in the Procedural Specialties
Dean’s Diversity Leader for Leadership Equity and Inclusion UCSF School of Medicine
Dr. Sanziana Roman is an endocrine surgeon with two decades of experience in treating tumors of the adrenal, thyroid and parathyroid glands. With a particular interest in minimally invasive techniques, she is one of the few surgeons in the world to frequently perform posterior retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy, a recently developed way of removing adrenal glands through the back that has advantages over the more common frontal approach.
Roman has extensive experience in treating thyroid growths in children and adolescents, as well as in adults. She sees patients with conditions including goiter, Graves' disease, thyroid cancer and congenital hypothyroidism with goiter. She also has expertise in inherited syndromes such as multiple endocrine neoplasia, a group of rare disorders in which the endocrine glands develop tumors.
Roman earned her medical degree at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. She completed a residency in general surgery at Yale School of Medicine. Prior to joining UCSF, she was chief of endocrine surgery at Yale for 13 years and later served on the faculty of Duke University for more than five years, becoming a tenured professor of surgery. She was also associate chief of Duke's advanced oncological and gastrointestinal surgery division. She established Duke's centers for adrenal disease and pediatric thyroid disease.
Roman has been listed in America's Top Doctors. Her research has been published in numerous medical journals, including JAMA Surgery, Annals of Surgery and Thyroid. She is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and belongs to the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons, International Association of Endocrine Surgeons, American Thyroid Association, Endocrine Society, Society of University Surgeons and American Surgical Association.
Prior to becoming a surgeon, Roman was an opera singer. Her love of singing and surgery have combined into a passion for using her skills to save the voices of patients undergoing neck operations.
