Nikole Neidlinger, MD MBA FACS

Education & Training

Undergraduate: University of Notre Dame

Medical School: Tulane University School of Medicine

General Surgery Residency: UCSF-East Bay

Fellowship: Transplant Surgery, University of Wisconsin

Graduate School: MBA, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Employment

2010-2020: Transplant Surgeon, California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, CA

2010-2020 Chief Medical Officer, Donor Network West, San Ramon, CA

2020-Present: Associate Professor, Transplant Surgery, University of Wisconsin

2020-Present: Associate Medical Director of Organ and Tissue Donation, University of Wisconsin

What was your favorite thing about UCSF East Bay?

The community and the autonomy. The operative experience developed when in a training program that does not have fellows or specialized trainee/residents to “compete” for cases. At the end of residency, I had a very broad experience operatively compared to my co-fellows. I had done suprapubic catheters, burr holes, peritonsillar abscess drainage, all sorts of “specialty” operations.

What about UCSF East Bay most helps you in your career now?

The autonomy, as described above. Also, the diversity of the Bay Area, and the patient care experience taught me a lot about cultural sensitivity, respect for diversity, and social justice.

Do you have a favorite memory from UCSF East Bay?

I was a PGY6 (Clinical PGY4) operating with our attending Dr Kelley Bullard, on an elective case when the trauma pager went off. One of us needed to go to the ED, so I went down. There was a young man with a stab wound to the chest. He was alert and oriented. But within 5 minutes, he was in extremis. FAST showed pericardial effusion. I took him to the OR and poked my head into Dr Bullard’s room to notify her this was urgent, but of course she could not leave the elective case. There was not a lot of time to start calling for backup. The patient lost pulses and I did a sternotomy and fixed his right ventricle as a PGY4 on my own. Richard Ha, a PGY3 at the time, now Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Kaiser Santa Clara, came by to give me a hand halfway through. The two of us fixed the RV and closed the chest. The patient walked out of the hospital. I still think of this case as a surgical, personal, and professional win.