David S. Yee, MD, MPH, Commissioner

Dr. David Yee is a sixth-generation Californian and physician, and his family ties to Northern California are part of the region’s history. His great-great-great grandfather, Dr. Yee Fung Cheung, was an herbal doctor in the Gold Country, and his store in Fiddletown, California is a state landmark. 

In 1862, Dr. Yee brewed an herbal remedy that cured California First Lady Jane Stanford of a severe pulmonary illness. A humanitarian and philanthropist, Dr. Yee’s grandfather, Dr. Herbert Yee, was the first overseas Chinese to help build a school and other public works in his family’s village in Toishan, China in 1981.

Dr. Yee graduated Phi Beta Kappa as an undergraduate and completed medical school at the University of California, Davis. During medical school, he obtained a Master of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley pursuing his interest in cancer epidemiology and healthcare policy. He then completed his residency in urologic surgery and served on faculty at the University of California, Irvine, where he also completed his fellowship training in robotic surgery. In addition, Dr. Yee completed fellowship training in urologic oncology and was a clinical instructor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.  

Currently, he is the Director of the Urology and Genitourinary Oncology Services at Sutter Roseville Medical Center and serves as a principal investigator of prostate cancer clinical trials at Sutter Health. 

He is also the Secretary of the Board of Trustees at Sutter Roseville Medical Center Foundation and is on the Board of Directors of Sutter Medical Group. An advocate for legislation that places patients first and promotes healthcare to underserved communities, he serves as the President-Elect of the Placer-Nevada County Medical Society and as a California Medical Association Delegate.

Recognized for his leadership and research endeavors in the field of urology and urologic oncology, he has published over thirty peer-reviewed journal articles and serves as a journal reviewer for his field’s leading journals. Concerned with the lack of published health data on Asian Americans, he has presented at international conferences and published his research findings on ethnic disparities in urologic cancer. He was also selected as an American Urological Association International Volunteers in Urology scholar and traveled to Vietnam and Thailand as a visiting surgeon. He serves on clinical faculty at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, and is a physician mentor at the Paul Hom Asian Clinic in Sacramento. He also serves on clinical faculty and as Associate Dean of Clinical Medicine at California Northstate University College of Medicine. In addition, he serves as a member of the California State Railroad Museum Foundation Board and the Sacramento Zoo Board of Trustees.