Rajiv Sethi, MD, PhD, is chief of orthopedic spine surgery, co-director of the UCSF Spine Center and system medical director of value-based musculoskeletal initiatives at UCSF Health, where he leads one of the nation’s premier spine programs.
He stepped into the three roles in April 2026, with a mandate spanning clinical leadership, growth of the UCSF Spine Center and expansion of systemwide musculoskeletal initiatives designed to improve access and outcomes. An internationally recognized authority in complex spinal surgery, Dr. Sethi specializes in scoliosis and adult spinal deformity and has treated patients from all 50 states and internationally. At UCSF he guides multidisciplinary teams of orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, neurologists, physiatrists, oncologists and pain medicine specialists.
Before joining UCSF, Dr. Sethi spent more than a decade in Seattle as clinical professor at the University of Washington and executive medical director of the Center for Neurosciences and Spine at Virginia Mason Medical Center, where he also led the Neuroscience Institute and directed the Complex Spine Clinical and Research Fellowship. There he helped develop the Seattle Spine Team Approach, an integrated model for value-driven spine care that has been adopted by programs worldwide and has informed centers of excellence contracts with private payors. Dr. Sethi’s work in spine quality and safety, health economics and health system innovation has been featured in Harvard Business Review and Modern Healthcare, and his first-author research appears in JBJS, Spine, Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine and Spine Deformity.
He has delivered keynote lectures for the spine societies of Brazil, Australia, the United Kingdom, India, Japan, Germany and Canada, and has served as a visiting professor and grand rounds speaker at institutions including Hospital for Special Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Cedars-Sinai, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Columbia University and Vanderbilt University. Dr. Sethi earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, completed his orthopedic surgery residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and completed a fellowship in complex spinal surgery, scoliosis and deformity at UCSF.
He also holds a PhD in health economics from Radboud University in the Netherlands and was a Fulbright Scholar in public health.
He holds senior leadership and board positions in several national and international academic spine societies.