About Me

Welcome to my Web page! It’s my pleasure to be a part of Kaiser Permanente, and I consider it both an honor and a privilege to be able to serve our members in all of their pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine needs.

Biography

I was born in Los Angeles at the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center and grew up in the Hollywood area. I attended college at UCLA, where I received my degree in marine biology. I then moved to Northern California to attend medical school at UC Davis. I was lucky enough to secure my internship and residency at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center. I also completed a fellowship in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at the Cedars-Sinai/UCLA combined program. Since then, I’ve been with Kaiser Permanente at the South Bay Medical Center, practicing fast-paced, high-adrenaline, critical care medicine as well as intellectually stimulating pulmonary and sleep medicine. I’ve also been chief of our division since the summer of 2007. My wife and I had our first child in the summer of 2006, our second in the winter of 2009, and our third in winter 2011.

About my practice

I run my practice the way I run my life—with passion and enthusiasm. I find it important to build a strong relationship, founded on mutual trust, with my members and their families. Furthermore, I keep close connections to my colleagues, who often help me find answers in particularly difficult cases, and join me in taking a team approach to member care. I’m especially interested in procedural techniques—including bronchoscopy with advanced imaging, airway management, pleural procedures, central venous access, and sleep studies. Practicing medicine is only one of many aspects of my life I must balance in order to stay happy and healthy.

How I thrive

Apart from spending time with my family, I’m particularly enthusiastic about SCUBA diving and travel—pastimes I picked up while in college. I also exercise and train with weights regularly, and I even run the occasional 5K or 10K race when motivated by my wife. Most recently, I’ve rekindled my love of racquetball and beach volleyball, which I find to be very stimulating ways to stay active. I like to keep up my creative side by playing the guitar, bass, and Indian sitar regularly. I’m a founding and active member of Kaiser Permanente South Bay Medical Center's band "The Pulse." Finally, coming from a long family line of carpenters and builders, I spend what little free time I have left doing projects around my house. I subscribe to the theory that a healthy body leads to a healthy mind, and I share that opinion with all of my members.