Sutter Health

Dr. Hurwitz is Associate Professor of Neurology and Associate Professor of Community and Family Medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. He has served as principal investigator on several research projects regarding the treatment of multiple sclerosis, Parkinson''s disease, and Guillain-Barre syndrome. Dr. Hurwitz is a well-known speaker at national and international neurological conferences and has written or coauthored chapters in books and articles for peer-reviewed medical journals.

Dr. Brent T. Shoji reviews medical content for Healthwise, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help people make better health decisions. Dr. Shoji is a specialist in abdominal and gastrointestinal surgery. He has been an Associate Surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston since 1987. Dr. Shoji was an Instructor in Surgery at Harvard Medical School from 1989 until July of 1997, when he was named Assistant Professor of Surgery. Dr. Shoji also practices with Brigham Surgical Group, Department of Gastrointestinal/General Surgery. He has been affiliated with Harvard Vanguard Medical Association (formerly Harvard Community Health Plan) since 1987 and was chief of general surgery from 1991 to 2005.

Dr. Kelly is a urologist with fellowship training in female urology, urodynamics, and pelvic reconstructive surgery. He is an assistant professor of urology at the New York University School of Medicine.

Dr. David Alexander reviews medical content for Healthwise, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help people make better health decisions. Dr. Alexander specializes in neurological rehabilitation. He is a Professor of Neurology at the University of California and Medical Director of the UCLA Neurological Rehabilitation and Research Unit at the Reed Neurological Research Center in Los Angeles, California. Dr. Alexander served as an expert panel member and author of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) Clinical Practice Guideline titled "Post-Stroke Rehabilitation."

Dr. Douglas Jacobs, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is a nationally recognized expert on suicide and depression and a leader in the mental health field. He also maintains a clinical practice in Wellesley and Newton, Massachusetts, and is on the staff of several psychiatric hospitals in the greater Boston area. Dr. Jacobs founded and is Executive Director of Screening for Mental Health, Inc. (formerly the National Mental Illness Screening Project), a nonprofit organization devoted to mental health education and screening. He has edited three books and numerous papers on suicide. Dr. Jacobs founded and directs National Depression Screening Day, the first program to apply the concept of a large-scale health screening to a mental illness. This collaborative effort is cosponsored by several national organizations including the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Psychiatric Association, and the National Mental Health Association. Since 1991, the program has provided free nationwide depression screenings each October during Mental Illness Awareness Week. In 1999, more than 3,000 sites around the country offered free screening for depression, and more than 100,000 people attended. The success of National Depression Screening Day led Dr. Jacobs to establish Screening for Mental Health, which helps coordinate national mental health screening programs and ensure cooperation, professionalism, and accountability in mental illness screenings. Screening for Mental Health also offers screening programs for eating disorders and alcohol as well as interactive screening services via telephone and the Internet.

Dr. Ian MacDonald reviews medical content for Healthwise, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help people make better health decisions. Dr. MacDonald is the Branch Chief of Ophthalmic Genetics and Visual Function at the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Clark is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan, where she is employed on a full-time basis. Dr. Clark is also an active member of the medical staff for the Saskatoon Regional Health Authority. She works primarily with adolescents, providing inpatient, outpatient, and emergency psychiatric care at the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Dr. McCullough is a specialist in male sexual health and fertility. He is Assistant Professor at New York University Medical Center and Director of the University''s Male Sexual Health and Fertility program. Dr. McCullough also serves on staff at a number of hospitals in the New York area including the Hospital of Joint and Bone Disease and the Manhattan Veterans Administration Hospital. He is a reviewer for the Journal of Urology and Urology.

Dr. Ginsberg is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He has been the director of the Thromboembolism Unit at Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals since 1989. In 1998 Dr. Ginsberg received the Stephen Garnett Distinction Award for Outstanding Physician which was awarded by the Hamilton Health Sciences Medical Staff. Dr. Ginsberg is actively involved in research and is an accomplished author of book chapters, articles for peer reviewed journals and abstracts. His current research interests include the clinical development of novel antithrombotic agents, the diagnosis and management of thrombosis during pregnancy, the prevention and treatment of post-phlebitic syndrome, the investigation of the clinical complications of antiphospholipid antibodies, and the diagnosis of venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. Dr. Ginsberg served as an Editorial Board Member for Evidence-based Cardiovascular Medicine in 1996 and served as a grant reviewer for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada for several years. He also serves as a career investigator for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

Dr. Laurence M. Epstein is a cardiologist who specializes in cardiac electrophysiology. Dr. Epstein's clinical specialties include all areas of cardiac electrophysiology, including outpatient arrhythmia management, diagnostic, electrophysiologic studies, catheter ablation, pacemaker and implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) implantation, and pacemaker lead extraction. Dr. Epstein is the Chief of the Arrhythmia Service and Director of the Cardiac Electrophysiology and Pacing Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Epstein is active in scientific research relating to the development and testing of new therapeutic approaches to the management of cardiac arrhythmias. He has co-authored a variety of articles published in leading medical journals, reports, and book chapters. Dr. Epstein has been invited to speak at numerous regional and national conferences.

Dr. Simon is an internist with specialized training in gastroenterology at the Kingston General and Hotel Dieu Hospitals in Kingston, Ontario. He is a professor emeritus in the Department of Medicine at Queen's University. In 2000 Dr. Simon received the Aesculapian Society Education Award, as he had earlier in 1995 and 1999. In 2001 he received the Aesculapian Society Phase IIE Teaching Award. He has also received the Basmajian Award for his research. Dr. Simon serves as a manuscript referee for a number of peer-reviewed journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Hepatology, Gastroenterology, JAMA, the Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology. He is an active researcher and lecturer and is widely published in Canada and the United States.

Dr. Patrice Burgess reviews medical content for Healthwise, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help people make better health decisions. Dr. Burgess is a family practice physician in Boise, Idaho, and is a part-time faculty member at the Family Practice Residency of Idaho. An accomplished instructor, Dr. Burgess received the Faculty Teacher of the Year Award for 1998 1999 and the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Award in 1993. Dr. Burgess is a past president of the Idaho Medical Association and the current American Medical Association Delegate for Idaho. She also does some administrative work for Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise. She assists the hospital with physician relations and the physician component of implementing an electronic health record. She has served as Associate Medical Director for Healthwise, Incorporated, since October 2000.

Robert A. Kloner, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine in the Cardiovascular Division, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. He is also Director of Research at the Heart Institute of Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles and attending cardiologist at Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center. Dr Kloner received his MD in the honors program in medical education and his PhD from Northwestern University The Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, and is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital (formerly Peter Bent Brigham Hospital) in Boston, Massachusetts. Additional training included clinical and research fellowships in medicine and cardiology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He served as Assistant and then Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and as an attending cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. There he received the Established Investigator Award of the American Heart Association (AHA). Dr Kloner is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, an inaugural fellow of the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences of the AHA, and was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation. A frequent contributor to the medical and scientific press, Dr Kloner has contributed 500 original papers, 196 chapters or monographs, and 410 abstracts. He is the author and editor of 18 medical texts, including Cardiovascular Trials Reviews (10 editions), The Guide to Cardiology, Stunned Myocardium, Ischemic Preconditioning, VIAGRA, and Heart Disease & Erectile Dysfunction and 3 novels titled The Beta Virus, Mind Cure, and The Deity Genes. Among his editorial responsibilities, Dr Kloner serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics and the International Journal of Impotence Research and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation, American Journal of Cardiology, American Journal of Geriatric Cardiology, Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, Heart, Heart Disease, Basic Research in Cardiology, and Regenerative Medicine. Among his many career distinctions, Dr Kloner has been listed in Who's Who in America and The Best Doctors in America and in 2002 was identified by the Institute for Scientific Information as ISI Highly cited.com; one of the world's most highly cited scientific authors.

Dr. Robert Keller reviews medical content for Healthwise, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help people make better health decisions. Dr. Keller is an orthopedic surgeon and former Executive Director of the Maine Medical Assessment Foundation, a health services research organization that was located in Augusta, Maine. The Foundation conducted research and clinical projects dealing with depression, diabetes, cesarean section, heart disease, pediatric medical conditions, and low back pain, among others. Dr. Keller is Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. He served as principal investigator for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality study on low back problems and is a coauthor of the Clinical Practice Guideline, Acute Low Back Problems in Adults, published in 1994. He is also principal investigator or co-investigator on other federally funded research projects in lumbar spine conditions and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Dr. Fort is an Associate Professor and Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories at Dalhousie University and Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is a reviewer for the journals Heart, Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, Canadian Journal of Cardiology, and Angiology and is a frequent worldwide lecturer on cardiovascular topics.

Dr. William M. Green reviews medical content for Healthwise, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help people make better health decisions. Dr. Green specializes in emergency medicine and the evaluation and treatment of sexual abuse. He is a clinical professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Davis, and director of Sexual Assault Education at the California Clinical Forensic Medical Training Center, UC Davis Medical Center. In 1988, he published a textbook for health professionals, Rape: The Evidential Examination and Management of the Adult Female Victim. Dr. Green is also staff physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Barton Memorial Hospital in South Lake Tahoe, California. Dr. Green has been reviewing Healthwise Knowledgebase topics since 1995 and was named an associate medical director in 1997.

Dr. Moeschler is board certified in pediatrics and medical genetics. Dr. Moeschler has served on various National committees including Dysmorphology Committee, American College of Medical Genetics, Board of Directors for the American Association of University Affiliated Programs, and the Information and Education Committee for the American Society of Human Genetics. He currently serves on the Committee on Genetics, American Academy of Pediatrics and is the AAP liaison to the Committee on Genetics of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He served on the Editorial Board of Genetic Resource, published by the Massachusetts State Genetics Program and the New England Regional Genetics Group. He is the Consulting Editor for Mental Retardation published by the American Association on Mental Retardation. Dr. Moeschler is a journal referee for Pediatrics, the American Journal of Medical Genetics, Annals of Plastic Surgery, and Mental Retardation. Dr. Moeschler is active in several research projects with his primary focus on individuals with disabilities and neurodevelopmental disabilities, and on delineation of genetic syndromes. He is an active speaker at both regional and national conferences, and is widely published in a variety of peer reviewed journals.

Mara is the Regional Vice President for Philanthropy overseeing the Peninsula Coastal Region of Sutter Health. She obtained her MBA from the University of San Francisco with a concentration in fundraising management. As a development professional, Mara's career has been dedicated to improving the health and well-being of our communities. With management experience in the health care and social service sectors, Mara's focus has been campaign feasibility and planning, high-capacity prospect management, board and staff development, and constituency strategy as it relates to organizational growth. She lives in San Francisco with her family and enjoys life as an equestrian, beachcomber and weekend bicyclist.

For the past three years, Margaret has been the CEO of Sutter Health Partners and Vice President of New Product Development for Sutter Health in Sacramento, Calif. Sutter Health Partners is the Lifestyle Management and Wellness Coaching program within Sutter Health, and is one of the early hospital system entrants into the field of health and wellness. Sutter Health is a non-profit network of 28 hospitals with affiliated clinics and physician organizations based primarily in Northern California. Prior to that, she was CEO of Marin Community Health for five years, which included Sutter Health affiliates Marin General Hospital and Novato Community Hospital. Under her leadership, Marin General Hospital achieved the Sutter Health award for the top Joint Commission score in the system and Novato Community Hospital received the prestigious President's Award. She and her team also turned Marin General Hospital's finances around from a net income loss of $6 million, to an $18 million gain in three years. She has also served as CEO of the Yampa Valley Medical Center in Steamboat Springs, Colo., and Swedish Medical Center in Englewood, Colo. In addition, she has been the Vice President for EMS and Trauma for the HealthONE Corporation, one of the largest health care systems in Colorado. She was named as one of the Bay Area's 100 Most Influential Women in Business by the San Francisco Business Times in 2003 and 2004.

Georgette Kearsing has been with Sutter Health for over 20 years and currently works as a Clinical Technology Researcher. Georgette helps to coordinate grants, corporate sponsorships and community outreach for RCTC. She is the Mom of B Castmember, Jenna, who aspires to be the next American Idol. Aside from all this fun, Georgette lives on a bird farm in Wilton with over 150 chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys and quail.

Dr. Coughlin is recognized nationally as a leading author and speaker on orthopedic topics. He is an orthopedic surgeon in private practice in Boise, Idaho, and Clinical Professor of Surgery in the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. Dr. Coughlin has given over 200 presentations at orthopedic conferences and is the author of 50 scientific publications regarding orthopedic foot and ankle surgery. Since 1987, he has co-authored and produced eleven video presentations and textbooks on orthopedic topics.

With more than 40 years experience in the health care industry, Mr. Jeppson has a deep understanding of the mounting financial challenges facing today's hospitals and physician organizations. Mr. Jeppson, retired executive vice president of Intermountain Health Care, a multi-state not-for-profit health care system based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is former chief executive officer of University of Colorado Medical Center as well as the University of Washington Medical Center. He served as regent, governor and board chairman to the American College of Health Care Executives and board chairman to the Health Care Forum. Author of numerous articles on the industry, Mr. Jeppson is a guest lecturer to U.S. universities and an international consultant to health care organizations in the Republic of South Africa, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Western Europe.