I called UCSF and spoke to the head nurse practitioner and had asked her about the two specialists. She said "Dr. Robert S. Warren (Chief of GI Cancer Surgeon) and Dr. Allen Venook (Head Onc.) are very good doctors who had dealt with many GIST patient in the past." She went on saying "Before Gleevec came out, the trials and research were done at UCSF and was done by Dr. Warren and Dr.Venook." After I hung up the phone with her I google research on Dr.Warren and Dr. Venook. It turned out that Dr. Warren used to work at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center <http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/2715.cfm> back in the late 80'sBoth Venook and Warren are nationally known academic doctors.
If you want to try them, the number is 415-353-9888.
FROM MARINA: It is an NCCN institution. This team is fine. Personally, I think we need to expand our thinking about who is capable of handling a GIST case...we are years past the time when there were very few places that could offer effective treatments for GIST.