Dr. Peter Sokolove Honored with 2026 AACEM Distinguished Service Award

Chair of the UC San Francisco Department of Emergency Medicine, Peter Sokolove, MD, FACEP, is the recipient of the Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine’s (AACEM’s) 2026 Distinguished Service Award.  

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Dr. Sokolove was nominated by his AACEM colleagues for this award, presented annually to a chair who has brought honor and distinction to AACEM by displaying outstanding leadership and significant contributions to the advancement of academic emergency medicine through leadership, education, research, clinical care, administration, public and professional service, and civic duties on behalf of academic chairs of emergency medicine.  

An Endowed Professor of Emergency Medicine who has served as Chair of the UCSF Department of Emergency Medicine since 2013, Dr. Sokolove assumed leadership during a formative period shortly after the department’s founding. Under his guidance, the department has experienced rapid growth across its clinical, research and educational programs, now spanning five major academic teaching hospitals, including two children’s hospitals. To ensure long-term programmatic and faculty support, he has established 15 endowed professorships and programs.

In addition to strengthening the department’s role as a core academic unit within the UCSF School of Medicine, Dr. Sokolove serves as co-chair of the UCSF Health Faculty Practice Advisory Committee and contributed to the development of an updated clinical funds flow model that supports more than $1 billion of annual revenue to the School of Medicine’s clinical departments. In 2025, he received the Holly Smith Award for Exceptional Service to the UCSF School of Medicine – the school’s most prestigious honor.

Dr. Sokolove’s career reflects sustained leadership focused on improving the quality of emergency care and advancing academic emergency medicine through education, research and health policy. Prior to joining UCSF, he served as Professor and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California Davis, where he served as the Residency Program Director for more than a decade. Dr. Sokolove has lectured extensively on a wide range of topics and has received multiple national educational honors, including the American College of Emergency Physicians’ Outstanding Speaker of the Year Award.  

Dr. Sokolove has authored publications in clinical care, medical education and health policy. From 2012-2013, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow through the National Academy of Medicine in Washington, DC. During this time, he worked as health policy staff for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, focusing on Medicare physician payment system reform and nationwide implementation of electronic health records.  

Dr. Sokolove has held numerous leadership roles within state and national emergency medicine organizations. He is a Past President of both the California Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine.