Facility Walnut Creek Medical Center Department of Hospital Medicine Address 1425 S. Main Street Hospital Walnut Creek CA 94596 Map & Directions Telephone General Information: (925) 295-4000 E-mail your doctor View your preventive services

About Me

Hi, I work at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center at Walnut Creek. I have been here since 2000, taking care of hospitalized adults on the HBS (hospital-based specialist) service. I also work for the call center at Vallejo during flu season.

My Background

I grew up in North Little Rock, Arkansas, with three brothers and one sister. We went to a Catholic elementary school, and I still attend mass in Berkeley. I went to high school in Clinton, Mississippi. I attended Ole Miss (University of Mississippi) from 1979 - 1983, receiving a chemical engineering degree. My father's family is full of engineers who went to Texas A&M University. I also learned several computer languages in high school and college, but the field was so young then, so what I use now is completely unrelated to what I learned then. I passed the engineering boards, but never practiced engineering.

Medical Training

I went to Ole Miss's Jackson campus for medical school, and was awarded a Navy scholarship. I worked there in the physiology department while Dr. Arthur Guyton was chairman. He wrote one of the most widely used textbooks in the world, Guyton's Textbook of Physiology.

I came to California for residency training in internal medicine in 1987 at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Oakland. I finished six years later, in 1993, after being interrupted by Navy service for three years. At least two of the residents with me in Oakland not only trained there, but were born there. My outpatient clinic attending (supervising physician) the last two years in Oakland was Dr. Kate Scannell, who has written a wonderful book about patients and the emotional demands of directing an inpatient AIDS ward during the early years of the AIDS crisis.

My three years in the Navy were highlighted by one year as an emergency department staff at Lemoore Naval Air Station, and one year as ship's medical officer and radiation health officer for the U.S.S. Texas. This was a nuclear-powered heavy cruiser. During my year aboard, it made its last deployment before decommissioning, a six month cruise to the Persian Gulf at the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

Then and Now

After residency, I practiced primarily emergency medicine for the next seven years. I worked for the Navy in Lemoore, as well as at small hospitals in Morgan Hill and Mariposa. I still lived in Oakland, and wished for a practice closer to home.

I currently work with a great team of doctors, including six HBS doctors that I worked with or trained under in Oakland during my residency. We go to a great deal of effort to match hospitalized patients to doctors who already know them, to keep your family updated when you are hospitalized, and to communicate with your primary care provider in clinic. We obtain input or consultation from sub-specialists, such as cardiologists and pulmonologists, whenever needed.

If you are hospitalized, you can help us by providing an up-to-date list of your medications and allergies, especially any recent changed dosage or stopped medication. Feel free to ask that we keep a particular family member or friend updated on your condition and plans for your care.

Personal

I am married and have two young children, a boy and a girl. Like most California transplants, once I experienced the weather here, no one could get me to go home. I jog, I bike, and I hit Peet's Coffee every day on the way to work like a native. I pull for the Oakland Athletics for six months a year, and for the Cal Bears almost like I went to school there. I'm sure that moving here caused me to live healthier and eat healthier. And I think that practicing medicine has led me to grow as a person, just as being a father and a husband has.

Go Rebels! Go Bears! Go A's!

My Credentials

Medical school	University of Mississippi School of Medicine, Jackson, MS
Internship	Kaiser Foundation Hospital, Oakland, CA
Residency	Kaiser Foundation Hospital, Oakland, CA
Board certification	Internal Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine

Disclaimer
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