Associate Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, UCSF Director of the Qualitative Methods Core, Osher Center

Shelley R. Adler, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF.  She received her Ph.D. in Folklore and Ethnomedicine at UCLA and was awarded a National Institute on Aging Postdoctoral Fellowship in Sociocultural Gerontology at UCSF.

Dr. Adler’s research focuses on the areas of ethnomedicine and integrative medicine, specifically ethnic and underrepresented minority experiences in women’s health (breast cancer, menopause); patient-physician communication; and, most recently, quality of life at end of life. She conducts qualitative, ethnographic, and mixed-method research. Dr. Adler serves as Director for the Osher Center's Qualitative Methods Core.

Dr. Adler is currently directing research that includes a study of health-care relationships among patients, physicians, and CAM practitioners; an ethnographic study of end-of-life experiences among underserved and ethnic minority women with breast cancer; and a book-writing project on the ways in which culture, history, and biology intersect to produce the traditional supernatural assault known as the “night-mare” or incubus. In 2005, Dr. Adler (together with Beverly Burns) received the Faith Fancher Research Award from the California Breast Cancer Research Program for work that exemplifies the commitment to breast cancer education, services, and care for underserved populations.

Dr. Adler is active in doctoral and medical student teaching, including directing the Area of Concentration in the Social Sciences in Medicine, serving as course director for the Cancer Block, and teaching Culture and Integrative Medicine, The Clinician as Ethnographer, and Foundations of Patient Care. She is particularly interested in the role of the social sciences in medical education and in 2005 was inducted into the Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators.
Publications