Adam Cifu, MD

Adam Cifu, MD is a general internist and professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. He divides his time between clinical practice, medical education and scholarly work related to evidence-based medicine. He is the author of over 125 peer reviewed articles and two books: Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives (2015) and Symptom to Diagnosis: An Evidence Based Guide (4th Edition, 2019)

Dr. Cifu received his M.D. degree from the Cornell University Medical College in 1993 and completed his residency training at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston before joining the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1997. He cares for patients in the Primary Care Group and attends on the inpatient general medical service.

Dr. Cifu was an active teacher in the medical school, participating in the curriculum in all 4 years. He directed the Internal Medicine Clerkship for 21 years and a course for 1st year students, Medical Evidence, for five. He directed a course for 4th year medical students, Critical Appraisal of the Landmark Medical Literature, for 25 years.

In 2024, he began teaching in the Master of Science in the Biomedical Sciences program at The University of Chicago.

Dr. Cifu’s published articles cover biomedical research, reviews, health humanities pieces as well as articles in the lay press. He is a co-author, with Dr. Vinay Prasad, of Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives, a book for medical and lay audiences about evidence-based medicine. He is also the co-author of a textbook, Symptom to Diagnosis: An Evidence Based Guide (4th Edition, 2019). This book focuses on teaching clinical reasoning and is widely used in medical schools, nursing schools, and physician assistant training programs. Symptom to Diagnosis has been translated into four other languages. This book is the basis of S2D: The Symptom to Diagnosis Podcast

Dr. Cifu has been widely recognized over the course of his career. Honors include the Department of Medicine’s Clinical Teaching Award, the Department of Medicine’s Preclinical Teaching Award, and the Biological Sciences Division’s Distinguished Educator/Mentor Award. He has also been awarded the national Louis N. Pangaro, MD Educational Program Development Award awarded by the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine and the University of Chicago’s Academic Communicators Network Excellence Award.

Dr. Cifu is the Associate Director of The Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence and a master to the Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators at the University of Chicago. Dr. Cifu was selected as a favorite faculty member by the graduating class of the Pritzker School of Medicine 17 times.