Dr. Yilma is a third-year resident in General Surgery at the University of California San Francisco. She was born in Ethiopia and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of fourteen, after which she obtained her undergraduate degree at Stanford University as a first generation college graduate. She received her medical degree at Charles R Drew/UCLA, where she received the Leaders of Tomorrow Scholarship and was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society. Given her commitment to community engagement and advocacy, she served as class president and SNMA chapter president, and participated in longitudinal mentorship programs that she has continued into residency. She received several internal and external scholarships for her clinical excellence and career potential in academic surgery, including the Samuel L. Kountz Diversity Fellowship from Stanford. Her medical school research on social determinants of health among liver transplant recipients has informed her current research investigating the impact of socioeconomic status on pre-liver transplant hospitalizations and waitlist outcomes.
Research interest: investigating barriers to solid organ transplantation as well as exploring the role of primary language, educational level, and social support on transplant waitlist evaluations and transplantation outcomes.