Ralph Brindis, MD, MPH

Dr. Brindis is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and serves on the affiliate faculty of the Phil R. Lee Institute of Health Policy Studies at UCSF. He presently is the Senior Medical Officer, External Affairs, for the ACC National Cardiovascular Registry (ACC-NCDR). Dr. Brindis was the President of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) from 2010 to 2011 and the Senior Advisor for Cardiovascular Disease for the Northern California Kaiser Permanente Medical Group from 2003 to 2012. He received his undergrad education at MIT and has a Master's Degree in Public Health from UCLA. He graduated Emory Medical School Summa Cum Laude. All of his graduate medical training was performed at UCSF as a Resident and Chief Resident in Internal Medicine and then as a Cardiology Fellow.
Dr. Brindis has served previously as the ACC Governor of Northern California and as Past President of the California Chapter of the ACC. Dr. Brindis is past Chair of the ACC-NCDR Management Board now overseeing ten cardiovascular national registries assessing cardiac catheterization and angioplasty, implantable defibrillators, carotid stenting, percutaneous valve implantation, acute coronary syndromes, ambulatory cardiovascular medical management and congenital heart disease. He is past Chair of the ACC Appropriateness Use Criteria Task Force developing appropriateness criteria for non-invasive testing and coronary revascularization procedures in cardiovascular disease. He has also served as Chair of the ACC Quality Strategic Directions Committee. Presently he serves on the ACC/AHA Task Force for Clinical Practice Guidelines and the ACC Clinical Quality Committee. Dr. Brindis was the 2007 recipient of the national ACC Distinguished Fellow Award and granted the Master’s designation of the ACC in 2011. In 2016 he was inducted into the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health Hall of Fame.
Dr. Brindis is active as a volunteer in the American Heart Association (AHA) having served on the California Affiliate Board and previously as President and member of the Board of the AHA San Francisco Division. Dr. Brindis is the Chair of the Cardiac Advisory Panel of the State of California OSHPD initiative overseeing public reporting of hospital and physician specific CABG mortality along with serving on the Advisory Board of California’s State Pilot program for PCI without surgical on-site capability. Dr. Brindis presently serves as a special government consultant on the FDA medical advisory panel for circulatory devices and has previously served as a panelist for MEDCAC. He presently serves on FDA’s MDEpiNet National Registries Task Force, a public private partnership implementing innovative Post-market medical device surveillance strategies. Dr. Brindis serves as a panel member for the California Technology Assessment Forum (CTAF). He is performing consultative work with the Stanford Clinical Excellence Research Center assessing value in healthcare along with serving on the steering committee of SMARTCare, a CMMI project implementing innovative quality CV care for patients with ischemic heart disease. Dr. Brindis has well over one hundred and forty publications in peer reviewed cardiovascular journals.

Dr. Brindis is a general adult cardiologist following a career as an interventional cardiologist presently performing CCU and consultative cardiology with the UCSF medical residency and cardiology fellowship program. His major interest in process measures and outcomes assessment in cardiovascular care had led to helping create and implement various Cardiovascular Guidelines for Northern California Kaiser Permanente.

Dr. Brindis is married to Dr. Claire Brindis, Director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Director of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health both at UCSF. Their son Seth is an Emergency Medicine Pediatrician and son Daniel is an environmental lawyer employed by Greenpeace. Dr. Brindis swims on the USF Masters Swim Team and enjoys fine wine and too infrequent golf.