July 2025
Thanks to the World Congress on Thyroid Cancer and Geoff Thompson for the invitation to give a talk on thyroid disease as part of the Middle East North Africa Thyroid Oncology Collaborative (MENATOC) as well as to present my research on pesticides and thyroid cancer. It has been a great conference.
October 2024
I’m deeply honored to be featured in this month’s UCLA Healthcare Alumni of Anderson newsletter. I’m incredibly grateful for this recognition and want to extend a heartfelt thanks to Mahruq Siddiqui and the UCLA Healthcare Alumni of Anderson board for selecting me. If you’re interested, feel free to check out the stories I’ve shared about my journey and experiences along the way.
September 2024
What a great session we had with the American Thyroid Association, Inc. (ATA) and patients from across the world discussing thyroid cancer this morning for Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month! Special thanks to @TylerCDrake and Dr. Samantray for moderating our sub panel together with me and to Dr. Fish for organizing!
January 2024
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been elected to the editorial board of the Journal Thyroid as their new Social Media Editor. This journal is the world’s leading, peer-reviewed resource for articles and research based on all thyroid related diseases. I’m extremely honored to be in this position and am excited to work with the editorial staff, the American Thyroid Association, and the chief editor, Dr. Anna Sawka
December 2023
Thanks to David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA Department of Surgery for supporting my attendance at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Mid-Career Women Faculty Leadership Development Seminar. What an incredible honor to be learning alongside 160 of my fellow women leaders in academic medicine. #MIDWIMS #womenleadersinmedicine #thefutureisbright
May 2023
In case you missed, please tune in below. We had a great Facebook live interactive session yesterday representing the American Thyroid Association(ATA), celebrating International Thyroid Awareness Week, and talking all things thyroid (from hypothyroidism to thyroid cancer)! I was joined by international thyroid experts Dr. Stephanie Fish, Dr. Johnson Thomas, and Dr Siobhan Pittock.
https://fb.watch/kSwexHU0V6/?mibextid=v7YzmG
May 2023
Do you or a family member have Graves disease (a common cause of hyperthyroidism)? How do you know if surgery is the right treatment choice for you? If you are curious about this, please take a look at this short video where I discuss it.
April 3, 2023
How dangerous is thyroid cancer? Here’s a video where I discuss it.
March 30, 2023
I want to take a moment to wish all my physician colleagues a Happy National Doctor’s Day! Thank you for your unwavering commitment to patient care. Physicians have always risen to new challenges, and the past few years have challenged the profession like never before. With courage and compassion, physicians have worked nonstop to keep our patients and communities safe, often putting their own safety and health at risk. Your caring and self-giving attitude have brought great comfort to those who entrust themselves into your care. As a doctor and healer, you are greatly appreciated not only on National Doctors’ Day, but every day of the year.
Please take the time to thank your doctors and your friends who are doctors today. It has been an especially grueling few years for physicians, and they would love to hear from you!
October 2022
Honored to moderate a panel on Endocrine Surgery Scientific Abstracts at the American College of Surgeons national 2022 Clinical Congress meeting with Dr. Reese Randel and Dr. Jennifer Rosen. So nice to be in person this year and to see so many friends and colleagues that I have not seen for so long. #ACS2022
September 2022
September is Thyroid Cancer Awareness month! ThyCa: Thyroid Cancer Survivors’ Association, Inc. is having their annual national meeting this weekend for allcomers (please join!). What a fabulous session/webinar I got to participate in today alongside my esteemed and renowned thyroid cancer physician colleagues (Dr. Michael Tuttle, Dr. Jennifer Choe, and Dr. Sarimar Agosto), answering some really important patient-directed thyroid cancer questions.
CheckYourThyroid #ThyroidCancer
American Thyroid Association, Inc. (ATA)
Gary Bloom
July 2022
I looked in a drawer and found this relic from exactly 2 years ago when we had to submit our masks for re-sterilization using UV light given PPE shortages. Oh how the world has changed since then. #staysafe #maskup
June 2022
I am extremely proud of my UCLA Anderson School of Management Strategic Management Research team for completing what was an incredibly impactful consulting Capstone project for our client UCLA Health and Medell Briggs, MD, MPH, MSHS. The innovative and complex operational and financial model we built for our client is phenomenal and will create an enormous impact on health equity in Los Angeles — we cannot wait to see this come to fruition. #healthequity #businessforchange #edi
March 20202
Someone took a candid photo of my operating with a resident physician the other day. It was so nice to get this as it’s rare to actually have a picture of yourself working. But, what I really loved about this photo is how it shows a shift in the gender norms that are attributed to surgery. Here, the two operating physicians are female and the surgical tech/nurse is a man. #womeninsurgery #womeninleadership #breakthestereotypes
November 10, 2021
Very thankful and honored to host this group of incredible female surgical colleagues who took time out of their VERY busy schedules to come to our annual Women In Surgery panel tonight. I have no doubt they have inspired our University of California, Los Angeles medical students to go into surgical fields! #thefutureisbright #WomenInSurgery #femaleleadership
October 13, 2021
Honored to have been asked to participate in the American Thyroid Association, Inc. (ATA) Annual Patient Forum Panel as a thyroid cancer expert alongside these esteemed colleagues.
September 29, 2021
Very excited to start the medical school year. Each year, Dr. O’Connell and I speak with our amazing incoming first year medical students in our Women in Surgery group — hoping to inspire and encourage women to go into the field. #womeninsurgery #womeninleadership #thetimehascome #thefutureisbright
September 2, 2021
September is Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month! Very honored and excited to have given Grand Rounds yesterday to our Department of Surgery at UCLA Health on a topic that I have been researching for several years (Risk Factors in Thyroid Cancer). #CheckYourNeck #ThyroidCancer American Thyroid Association, Inc. (ATA)
July 21, 2021
Honored to speak to these high school students from the National Youth Leadership Forum today on my personal path to becoming a surgeon and (hopefully) inspiring them to do the same! #thefutureisbright
January 28, 2021
I spoke with Carlos Amezcua on BEONDTV with a brief overview about the science behind the COVID-19 vaccines, what the data on the trials said and what my personal experience was with the Pfizer vaccine. Plus I explain a bit about how mRNA works and why it’s not new. For more information about the vaccines go to CDC.gov.
Most importantly, when it is your turn, get vaccinated!
Full video here.
December 26, 2020
I got the Covid vaccine:
For my family,
for my friends,
for my coworkers,
for my community,
and for the world.
Be safe. Wear masks. Keep distancing.
This is not over yet. But it will be soon. Please get your vaccine when you’re offered it.
November 14, 2020
Thanks to the American Thyroid Association, Inc. (ATA) for inviting me to participate as an expert physician in this great Patient Forum today alongside these other amazing physicians and patient advocates!
October 25, 2020
Honored to be invited to sit on an expert physician panel today during the Thyroid Cancer Survivors’ Association’s International Annual Meeting with Dr Lori Wirth, Dr. R. Mike Tuttle, and Dr. Mabel Ryder. Thanks also to ThyCa Executive Director Gary Bloom and ThyCa member Pam Mandenhall for making this session and this conference happen. This association is an invaluable resource for thyroid cancer patients.
October 3, 2020
Honored to have moderated the Endocrine Surgery Session for the Scientific Forum at the American College of Surgeons national Clinical Congress. Fantastic presentations with cutting edge Endocrine Surgery research. Congratulations to all of the presenters!
September 30, 2020
September is thyroid cancer awareness month! Please join me and my colleagues on: September 30, 5 pm PST/8 pm EST for a Facebook live event on the topic of thyroid cancer where you can ask questions in real time to experts from the American Thyroid Association, Inc. (ATA) and American Assocation of Endocrine Surgeons. Tune into the AAES website to participate
June 17, 2020
Very honored to have spoken at the Egyptian Society of Surgery International Conference today on Pheochromocytoma/Paraganglioma (adrenaline producing tumors) and Graves disease (a cause of hyperthyroidism) on behalf of the International Society of Surgery (Iss Sic).
June 2020: Excited to be invited to present at this international surgical meeting in June! Thanks to the Egyptian Society of Surgery and the International Society of Surgery for this opportunity. Looking forward to it!
May 6, 2020
November 2019
“I created the Women in Surgery group nine years ago, and it has become quite successful in inspiring female medical students,” smiles Dr. Avital Harari, an associate professor of endocrine surgery at UCLA Health. “Female surgeons are still underrepresented, and the goal of this group is to inspire female medical students to go into surgery and change the makeup of surgeons in this country. There are a lot of stereotypes around training and becoming a surgeon, and we want to dispel those myths. At this panel, students are free to ask whatever questions they want in a low stress and friendly environment. Hopefully the students can get a sense of what we do and what our lives are like. Every year we have so many more female surgeons and it makes me happy to see. Patients need us and I hope more and more women will go into this field.”
July 2019
Honored to have been invited to my sixth year of (hopefully) inspiring the next generation of leaders in medicine and health care. Hundreds of high school students who dedicated 9 days of their summer to discover their passions through the National Youth Leadership Forum – Medicine. I’m excited to see what becomes of these grads! #NYLF #envision
June 2019
- I am honored to have been quoted in this very good article about the increased rates of thyroid cancer we are seeing in California. It’s important awareness. Please read. #thyroidcancer #awareness #AmThyroidAssn #ThyCaInc
March 26,2019
Speaking on Adrenal Surgery in Spanish! I’m proud to represent the International Society of Surgery ( Iss Sic ) and the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons (#IAES)at the 16th International Congress of General Surgery in Lima, Peru (Hosted by the Peruvian Chapter of the American College of Surgeons)
March 2019
Honored to represent Women in Medicine at the LeaninUC University of California Women in Leadership conference 2019. We’ve come a long way but there is still a ways to go. leanin leadership medicine womeninsurgery
Thank you Dr. Julie Ann Sosa, Chair of the Department of Surgery at UCSF, for being this year’s woman in surgery guest speaker at UCLA. It was an honor to have you. #inspiration #womensurgeons #mentorship #diversity
Avital Harari, MD, MBA, MSc, FACS -- ENDOCRINE SURGEON 