Matthew Growdon

Matthew Growdon

Class of 2007, Modern Europe
Geriatrician and Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
Matthew Growdon

Thesis Title: Ford Madox Ford and the Wartime Mind

What Now: Geriatrician and Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

What Next: Improving the quality and safety of prescribing for older adults with cognitive impairment and social vulnerability

I vividly recall agonizing over my choice of concentration, feeling that I would be torn apart by seemingly disparate interests in the humanities and medicine. Fortunately, History and Literature proved to be a fertile environment in which to combine these interdisciplinary interests. In tutorials and seminars, I studied diverse topics from the incipient public health movement of 18th-century America to the early 20th-century debate surrounding shell shock and wartime mental illness, the topic of my senior thesis. These experiences situated my premedical coursework in a rich historical context, encouraging me to approach the practice of modern medicine with an open mind and an abiding humanity. Strong writing, editing, and communication skills; contextual and nuanced thinking; and an appreciation for how people document the human experience through media such as literature, art, language, and history—these are just a few examples of invaluable skills from History and Literature that have guided my career in medicine.


Read More:
• "Minimizing Sleep Disruption for Hospitalized Patients: A Wake-Up Call," co-authored with Sharon K. Inouye, JAMA Internal Medicine (September 2018)
• "Improving Care for Ground-Level Falls in Assisted Living," co-authored with Sharon K. Inouye, Annals of Internal Medicine (February 6, 2018)
"The Tension Between Promoting Mobility and Preventing Falls in the Hospital," co-authored with Ronald I. Shorr and Sharon K. Inouye, JAMA Internal Medicine (June 2017)
"Potential Medicare Savings From Generic Substitution and Therapeutic Interchange of ACE Inhibitors and Angiotensin-II-Receptor Blockers," co-authored with Chana A. Sacks, Aaron S. Kesselheim, and Jerry Avorn, JAMA International Medicine (December 2019)
"Polypharmacy among older adults with dementia compared with those without dementia in the United States," co-authored with Siqi Gan, Kristine Yaffe, and Michael A. Steinman, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (June 2021)

Career Paths