Outstanding Awards Nominations Due April 21, 2022 Have you submitted your nomination yet for this year's SBCMS Outstanding Awards? Nominate yourself or a colleague to receive one of these prestigious awards which will be presented at the SBCMS Annual Installation of Officers on June 22. DEADLINE TO SUBMIT YOUR NOMINATION: APRIL 21 AT 11:59PM PT (CLICK HERE FOR NOMINATION FORM) We look forward to celebrating our shining stars! Thank you for helping us pay tribute to exceptional individuals whose contributions to medicine and the community have changed all of our lives for the better. Questions? Please email Debbie at debbie@sbcms.org. April 8, 2022 Awards, General SBCMS Outstanding Awards 0 0 Comment Read More »
Donald Case, M.D. Selected as "Top Doc" for SBCMS 2019 Congratulations to Donald Case, M.D., a Pediatrician practicing in Barstow, CA, who was selected as the “Top Doc” for San Bernardino, County Medical Society (SBCMS) 2019. Lights for Little Lives, created and sponsored by The Unforgettables Foundation in 2001 in partnership with non-profits like Ronald McDonald House, the Candlelighters, Olive Crest Foundation, Rotary, Kiwanis, and The United Way, honors top doctors/pediatricians from the Inland Empire. Winners are selected through SBCMS, Riverside County Medical Association (RCMA) and Children’s Hospital at Loma Linda. SBCMS nominee physician must be a pediatrician or work primarily with children or families. Candlelight Walk will take place Dec. 31, 2019 at 3:30pm at Ronald McDonald House at LLU Children’s Hospital. The Unforgettables Foundation provides financial assistance to families with limited resources to help offset the costs of providing a dignified and respectful burial following the death of a child. December 11, 2019 Awards, General Top Doc Award, The Unforgetables Foundation, TUF 0 0 Comment Read More »
Congratulations James Tong, MD, on receiving "The Unforgettables "Top Doc" Award James Tong, MD selected by the San Bernardino County Medical Society's Board of Directors, for "The Unforgettables "Top Doc" Award for 2018. James E. Tong, MD is the Assistant Area Medical Director of the Women’s and Children’s Health Service Line for Southern California Permanente Medical Group (SCPMG), in the San Bernardino County Area (SBC). He has been in this role since May 2016; prior to his current role Dr. Tong was the Chief of Service, Pediatrics beginning in April 2013. After completing his Pediatrics Residency (2006) and his Pediatric Nephrology fellowship (2009) at UCSF, Dr. Tong was fortunate to join SCPMG. In addition to his local responsibilities at SBC, Dr. Tong also serves as the Regional Co-Lead of Pediatric IQM as well as the Regional Co-Lead of Autism Spectrum Disorder/Developmental Disabilities. Under Dr. Tong’s leadership, the KP SBC Area was recently announced as an affiliate of the Children’s Hospital Association. He leads the efforts for the Kaiser Permanente Children’s Care Network, and Pediatric Tertiary Care Services. Dr. Tong enthusiastically supports all medical center events especially those celebrating pediatric patients, such as the annual inpatient Halloween party. He was invited to participate as a keynote speaker at the First Annual Pregnancy & Infant Loss Ceremony, for the San Bernardino County Area. Dr. Tong has oversight of the process of PICU and NICU Transport teams. He maintains a full practice Nephrology panel clinic while also taking on the responsibilities of the Assistant Area Medical Director. He consistently extends appointment hours with the motto that no patient is left behind. It is not unlikely that Dr. Tong has booked 2-3 patients at 8am. He never makes patients wait; he will bring the patients in to do vitals and input values as well. He will also assist the patient with filling out visit questionnaires. He provides training to staff, educating his nurse on how to apply the 24-hour Blood Pressure monitor on patients, he also does his own blood pressure monitor follow up with patients. Dr. Tong is fluent in Spanish, and he never requests interpreter services. He will not hesitate to print an after-visit summary and review with the patients for further understanding. The feedback from patients and parents is that “Dr. Tong makes them feel comfortable and Dr Tong is awesome!” Patients that are nearing the age of 18 are always sad to leave him. Dr. Tong is always available to provide nephrology consults and he is gracious and accommodating with his expertise. He never hesitates to support colleagues. Dr. Tong has excellent clinical and bed side manner. He goes above and beyond, and at one point he even provided a pediatric hospital gown for a small framed elderly patient on hospice while she was in the hospital. He is the only SCPMG Pediatric Nephrologist in the Inland Empire, and he is generally on call full-time, rotating weekend call with (3) SCAL service area colleagues. He is an active promoter of physician wellness as a priority, attending all Physicians THRIVE Council Events. He is the reigning Physician Tennis Champion for SBC. He has been married to his wife Connie, Pediatric Nurse for six years. Together, they are the proud and loving parents to their smart, beautiful and courageous young daughters, Mia (5) and Ella (2). SCPMG Partners in San Bernardino County consider it a privilege to have Dr. Tong as a colleague, he is the example of a servant leader. He is consistently a hands-on clinician, a collaborative leader and a true ambassador for pediatric patients. Congratulations Dr. Tong and thank you for representing SCPMG and SBCMS!!! January 3, 2019 Awards The Unforgettables, Top Doc Award 0 0 Comment Read More »
Apple Valley pediatrician, Damodara Rajasekhar, M.D., San Bernardino pediatrician, honored with CMA membership award Apple Valley pediatrician Damodara Rajasekhar, M.D., has been named the 2018 recipient of the California Medical Association (CMA) Dev A. GnanaDev, M.D., Membership Award, which recognizes a special or unique effort toward membership recruitment. The award was announced today at CMA’s annual House of Delegates in Sacramento. Dr. Rajasekhar this year played a major role in continuing CMA’s partnership with Loma Linda University Medical Center, leading to a membership renewal for 440 Loma Linda physicians. “[Dr. Rajasekhar was] the vital spark that reignited the flame, creating an alliance between one of the largest and most well-respected statewide academic medical groups with the most dominant representation of organized medicine in California,” said Eric R. Hansen, DO, past-president of the San Bernardino County Medical Society (SBCMS), who nominated Dr. Rajasekhar for the award. Dr. Rajasekhar is a solo pediatrician in Apple Valley, where he provides primary care for children of all ages, from infants to teenagers. He also provides neonatal ICU care at Victor Valley Global Medical Center in Victorville. He has been a member of CMA and SBCMS for 19 years. Dr. Rajasekhar received his medical degree from the University of Madras in India. After completing his residency in Pediatrics from the University of Connecticut Medical Center, he also completed a fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine from the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. He is Board certified in both Pediatrics and Neonatal-Perinatal medicine. After completing his fellowship in Massachusetts, he worked in Kentucky for two years before starting a solo pediatric practice in California in 1996. Dr. Rajasekhar was sworn in as president of SBCMS in June, and he is currently a member of CMA Board of Trustees, representing the Organized Medical Staff Section (OMSS). Prior to that, was an OMSS board member for 10 years and served as the chair of OMSS. He is also currently the treasurer for CMA Political Action Committee (CALPAC). Dr. Rajasekhar was named “Fundraiser of the Year” by the CMA in 2017 after accomplishing the monumental feat of raising $100,000 for CALPAC—which allowed CMA to aggressively support the hospital medical staff at Tulare Regional Medical Center in its successful lawsuit against the hospital. October 16, 2018 Awards, CMA Physician Leadership 0 0 Comment Read More »
Tickets now available for 21st Annual President's Reception and Awards Gala The California Medical Association (CMA) and the CMA Foundation invite you to the 21st annual President’s Reception and Awards Gala on the evening of Saturday, October 21, 2017, at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. The black tie event will immediately follow CMA’s annual House of Delegates session that day. Individual tickets and tables of 10 are now available for purchase. Tickets are $200 per person and tables are $2,500. Table sponsorships also include VIP seating and program recognition. Space is limited and this special event is expected to sell out, so secure your seats early. There will not be onsite or week-of ticket sales. Each year, CMA and the CMA Foundation honor the extraordinary leadership of individuals and organizations making a difference in the health of Californians. The incoming CMA president and recipients of the Robert D. Sparks, M.D., Leadership Award and the Adarsh S. Mahal, M.D., Access to Health Care and Disparities Award will be recognized at this prestigious event, which includes a cocktail reception, dinner, inspiring program, live auction and exciting entertainment. For more information or to buy tickets, please visit www.cmanet.org/gala. Contact: Jennifer Moller, (916) 551-2541 or jmoller@cmanet.org. August 16, 2017 Awards, CMA Awards, CMA Foundation(CMAF), House of Delegates, Physician Leadership 0 0 Comment Read More »
CMA CFO honored by Sacramento Business Journal Lance Lewis, chief operating and financial officer for the California Medical Association (CMA) was honored as one of the Sacramento Business Journal's CFOs of the Year. Lewis was recognized because his innovative leadership over the past 18 years has helped transform CMA into a thriving organization that cultivates and values talent, systems and processes that support a diverse, high performance workplace culture. Lewis oversaw the complete transformation of the association’s financial processes, revamping the budgeting process from a traditional accounting method to an activity-based costing model tied to the strategic plan. He also orchestrated the sale of a subsidiary company to create a $20 million endowment, and terminated a historically underfunded defined benefit pension plan and restructured CMA’s long-term debt to take advantage of the low-interest-rate environment. “What makes Lance such an integral part of CMA is that he puts the team before himself,” said CMA Chief Executive Officer Dustin Corcoran. “His ability to make the CMA budget an active part of the strategic planning process is incredibly important.” Lewis reengineered the human resources employee recruitment process to inculcate diversity and inclusiveness initiatives that resulted in more women and minorities being placed in senior management roles. Faced with an expensive and sprawling governance process, Lewis also helped usher in a new era of proactive rather than reactive decision-making for the 160-year-old organization. “Utilizing technology, we transformed our 160-year-old governance procedures to create a proactive decision-making process to develop policies that keep CMA a political force statewide,” said Lewis. Probably the most transformative action he took was to implement a new $3.6 million integrated Association Management System (AMS) connecting CMA to 42 component medical societies, subsidiaries and affiliates throughout California to share real-time information about physician members. Results have greatly benefited CMA and its component societies. By integrating membership information across the state in a real-time, centralized AMS, CMA is better able to reach its members with information and campaigns relevant to their region, specialty and an array of other demographic groupings. CMA has enjoyed sustained average membership growth of 3.50 percent annually since 2011, and most recently 6.20 percent growth in 2016, the highest growth year on record since 1962. His record of prudent investment choices and leveraging existing assets has resulted in big gains for CMA. CMA's investment portfolio posted a 10.17 percent return in 2016 and averaged 9.27 percent in the last five years. Lewis' keen understanding that there is a time for saving and a time for investing, he has grown CMA in resources, staff, physician members and acclaim. "Thanks to record membership growth and prudent investment decisions, CMA has the financial strength to further its advocacy interests," said Lewis. "We've managed our resources and taken on prudent financial debt such that we've been able to leverage CMA's influence to win tough fights for our members." July 24, 2017 Awards, CMA Awards, CMA in the News 0 0 Comment Read More »
First annual HOD poster presentations a huge success The California Medical Association (CMA) hosted its first ever House of Delegates (HOD) poster session to showcase research by medical students, residents and fellows around the state. The winners were Alexandra Iacob, M.D., a pediatrics resident at Loma Linda University Medical Center, and Sahil Aggarwall, a second-year medical student from the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Iacob's research looked at the after-effects of non-fatal drowning to see if medical care could be improved and if policies could be developed to reduce the devastating effects "not only for the patient but for the entire family.” Her poster, which she was inspired to create after she and her team saw too many non-fatal drowning incidents in their pediatrics practice at Loma Linda, looked at data from 265 submersion incident reports in San Bernardino County between 2007 and 2014. Among the conclusions were that males are at increased risk and that the majority of injuries occurred when fencing was present. Dr. Iacob hopes to take this data and write a bill to be submitted to the state legislature requiring state data collection. She and her team are also entertaining other advocacy efforts to “improve health outcomes of our children…[but the] ultimate goal is to develop measures to prevent these terrible injuries.” Aggarwal presented research that looked at medical students’ attitudes toward reporting risky behaviors committed by doctors, nurses and classmates. “After doing some searching through research databases, I found that there is not a single study that characterizes medical students' attitudes toward reporting different provider types for the same behavior or error.” He surveyed 159 medical students at UC Irvine and found that medical students are more likely to approach and discuss a medical error or unethical behavior with a classmate or nurse rather than a doctor. “I think that reporting medical errors or unethical behaviors is vital to both the health and safety of patients," said Aggarwal, who believes that medical schools should implement patient safety curricula that alleviates student fears about reporting superiors, and that hospitals should be encouraged to create anonymous error-reporting systems to improve reporting rates. "I plan on continuing to encourage medical students to report these behaviors by working to incorporate a section in the UC Irvine first-year curriculum about medical error/unethical behavior reporting and its importance," he said. Both winning posters, as well as presentations from 20 other medical students and residents, were on display immediately outside the ballroom where the delegates met during the CMA annual meeting. The research was well received by all, and we hope that this will become a permanent fixture at future meetings and encourage more future physicians to take an active role within the association. “As a pediatric resident I have been involved with CMA since I moved to California," said Dr. Iacob. "I have seen CMA's advocacy efforts for patients through various meetings throughout the year. I thought this contest would be a wonderful platform to discuss the data we have been able to gather in our county and develop future plans.” A big thank you to the Academic Practice Forum for judging the contest and to the Medical Student Section and Resident and Fellow Section for reviewing the abstracts. To view the winning poster session abstracts, click here. November 4, 2016 Awards, CMA residents and Fellows, House of Delegates, Medical Students 0 0 Comment Read More »
CMA Foundation recognizes two physicians with leadership awards The California Medical Association (CMA) Foundation recognized two deserving physicians at the Annual President's Reception and Award Gala, held October 15 in Sacramento. Peter N. Bretan, Jr., M.D., received the 2016 Adarsh S. Mahal, M.D., Access to Health Care and Disparities Award, which honors an individual or organization that has made a significant contribution toward improving access to health care or reducing health care disparities in California. Dr. Bretan, a renal transplant surgeon and urologist with special training in laparoscopic surgery, has demonstrated a longstanding dedication to improving individual and community health through effective leadership at a variety of levels. As the founder and lead transplant surgeon for Life Plant International, a charitable organization, he promotes disaster preparedness, organ donation and early disease screening in the U.S. and abroad. He organizes and participates in life-saving medical missions that include performing and teaching about kidney transplants and laparoscopic kidney removal. He received his medical degree and completed his residency at the University of California, San Francisco. He is active in the Philippine Medical Society of Northern California. He is serving his fifth term as president of the Marin Medical Society and has been a delegate for CMA and the American Medical Association House of Delegates. David S. Kim, M.D., received the Robert Sparks, M.D., Leadership Achievement Award, which honors an individual who has demonstrated outstanding commitment to community health. Dr. Kim, a Los Angeles ob-gyn, embodies this mission through his dedication to improving the health and wellness of Korean Americans through collaborative planning, community action and policy advocacy. Dr. Kim is assistant director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Program at Cedars-Sinai, the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. He is also the president of the Korean American Graduate Medical Association and a board member and research and education chair of the national Korean American Medical Association. He has also served on many national committees of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Kim received his medical degree from the State University of New York Health Science Center Downstate Medical Center. He completed his residency at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and advanced his training with a master’s degree and Ph.D. in clinical research, as well as an MBA from the University of Hawaii. November 4, 2016 Awards Awards, CMA Foundation (CMAF), Physician Leadership 0 0 Comment Read More »
Sacramento physician receives 2016 Compassionate Service Award Sacramento emergency physician Hernando Garzon, M.D., was recognized with the California Medical Association’s (CMA) Compassionate Service Award at the 145th annual CMA House of Delegates, which convened October 15-16, 2016, in Sacramento. The award honors a CMA member physician who best illustrates the association's commitment to community and charity care. For more than 20 years, Dr. Garzon has demonstrated a commitment to disaster response and humanitarian medical relief. In the fall of 2014, Dr. Garzon went to West Africa to assist with the outbreak of Ebola, which had an incredibly high mortality rate of over 65 percent. He was one of the first American physicians to respond to this international crisis. “[It was] a reminder of how incredibly low-resourced many developing countries still are, and how vulnerable these populations are to any problems that test their extremely-limited resources," said Dr. Garzon, who serves as Director of Emergency Management for Kaiser Permanente's 21 hospital system in northern California. "It’s a reminder for me of the developed world’s responsibility to respond to these events, knowing that the developing world cannot manage them alone.” For Dr. Garzon, it's a responsibility he takes very personally. He has provided humanitarian relief around the world, including during the tsunami in Sri Lanka, the Kashmir earthquake in Pakistan, famine in Somalia and most recently, the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. Dr. Garzon also serves as the Director for Kaiser Permanente's Global Health Program. In that role, he has helped develop capacity building and volunteer clinical programs in throughout Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. Domestically, Dr. Garzon has participated in over a dozen domestic disaster response deployments with FEMA, including the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. He teaches extensively on disaster medical care and humanitarian medical response efforts – and even consults for the U.S. Department of State on medical care for victims of weapons of mass destruction. In California, he has trained more than 400 physicians and paramedics on medical search and rescue – work he maintains as some of the most rewarding of his career. And while Dr. Garzon is obviously deserving of accolades for his humanitarian relief efforts, his colleagues also consider him a wise, courageous and compassionate physician who truly believes in teaching and motivating his patients. He’s been quoted as saying “the more patients participate in their own care, the more they will live a healthy and effective life with whatever illness they have, and the less the illness itself will ‘win’ them over.” November 1, 2016 Awards, CMA Awards, Disaster Preparedness, Physician Leadership 0 0 Comment Read More »
CMA's 2016 Nye Award given to Los Angeles psychiatrist Los Angeles psychiatrist Karen Miotto, M.D., was named the 2016 recipient of the California Medical Association (CMA) Gary S. Nye Award for Physician Health and Well-Being in recognition of her selfless devotion to advocating and promoting the well-being of her fellow physicians The award honors a CMA member who has made significant contributions toward improving physician health and wellness. The award was established by the House of Delegates in 2009 in honor of Gary Nye, M.D., a leader in bringing attention and developing solutions for physician impairment and rehabilitation. Dr. Miotto was integral to the development of a new mental health service for physicians-in-training. She regularly orchestrates lectures on workshops on related issues like resilience, grief and loss, and mental health, as well as conferences for hospital leadership and wellbeing committee members. She became a member of UCLA’s Medical Staff Health Committee in 1994, and since then has led the development of programs, services and activities that now serve as a model for other institutions. In 2014, she first convened medical staff health committees from California’s medical schools and academic health centers to provide ongoing support and consultation. And through her work with the California Society of Addiction Medicine, she helped create Western Doctors in Recovery for those entering treatment and rehabilitation. November 1, 2016 Awards, CMA Awards, House of Delegates 0 0 Comment Read More »
