About Me

Hello! I'm pleased that you've come to my Web page where you can meet me for a bit. I look forward to meeting you face-to-face as well.

Biography

I grew up in New York City, which was way too fast-paced for me (even in the 1950s and 60s!), and my life has been a gradual westward migration (Ithaca and Syracuse, New York, Madison, Wisconsin, and then Los Angeles). I wanted to be a physician since before I was 10, inspired by receiving presents such as The Visible Man and The Visible Woman (human anatomy model kits for kids). One of my greatest loves in life is that of communicating with others, whether it’s one-on-one sharing or delivering a lecture to hundreds. Medicine gives me the opportunity to do both. My husband and I are the proud adoptive parents of a charismatic and (we think, perhaps not so objectively!) darling boy.

About my practice

I work in the hospital as well as an HIV clinic. My work in the hospital involves consulting, admitting, and treating patients. I am part of a team of more than 35 physicians who provide quality medical evaluation, diagnosis, and care. At the HIV clinic, I care for many HIV-positive members at the Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center. I work with a full-time nurse practitioner/coordinator, a pharmacist, and a social worker. We provide general primary care as well as HIV care to our patients. I started working with HIV patients at Kaiser Permanente in the late 1980s, when the survival rates were low and there wasn’t much we could do. I feel blessed to be able to witness the progress we have made since then! I also help lead Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles’s efforts to improve provider communication and empathy skills.

How I thrive

Outside of Kaiser Permanente, I frequently lecture on various aspects of HIV/AIDS. I live near the medical center, and walking to and from work is one of the ways I try to keep fit. At home, I practice daily meditation. My favorite fun activities are movies (favorite film: Cinema Paradiso) reading fiction (among my favorite books are The Magus, by John Fowles, and I Know This Much Is True, by Wally Lamb), listening to and cataloging pop music from the 1950s to the 1970s, vegetarian cooking (fettuccini with sun-dried tomato and parsley sauce, tiramisu), and of course, playing with my son.