Charles Meltzer, MD, FACS
“The leadership Dr. Meltzer demonstrated through his collaboration with 26 specialists internationally is truly a testament to his dedication to patient care. He has effectively elevated the practice of thyroid surgery.”
— Michael Shulman, MD, physician-in-chief, KP Santa Rosa
Charles Meltzer, MD, is known as an exceptional leader who motivates and empowers everyone around him. An innovator at heart, he jumped at the chance to help the interregional head and neck surgery chairs enhance care management for patients with thyroid nodules in 2013.
To gain a better understanding, he first set out to collect and conduct a comprehensive analysis of the data. Dr. Meltzer identified opportunities to consolidate care to higher volume surgeons, standardize consistent care management, and confirmed no difference in clinical outcomes for patients going home same day vs. inpatient surgery.
Dr. Meltzer assembled a large, multidisciplinary team that included physicians from head and neck surgery, endocrinology, general surgery, medical imaging, nuclear medicine and pathology. They embarked on a large-scale collaboration to streamline workflows and hosted a series of multidisciplinary conferences to share progress and solicit feedback. The resulting Thyroid Surgery Redesign Program was officially launched in fall of 2015. Dr. Meltzer’s ongoing commitment to sharing and learning from data continues to promote best practices across KP regions.
Dr. Meltzer along with Harvard surgeon, Dr. Greg Randolph, published a white paper in the April 2019 issue of Head & Neck that is a North American consensus statement which sets the standard for peri-operative thyroid nodule management and quality metrics.