Anmol Mahal, MD
CMA member since 1980
Anmol Mahal, MD, a Fremont internist and gastroenterologist, became president of the California Medical Association at the House of Delegates meeting in October. Dr. Mahal previously served as president-elect. He was also a former chair of the CMA board of trustees and has been a board member for nine years. Dr. Mahal is the first Sikh physician to head a major medical association in the United States.

"One of my priorities as president is to continue fighting Gov. Schwarzenegger's regulations that limit a physician's ability to bill for emergency care services rendered," Dr. Mahal says. "I also want the CMA to implement a healthcare financing reform plan in order to increase healthcare access in the state."

In September, Dr. Mahal was appointed to the State Health Professions Education Foundation board of trustees, which oversees a variety of scholarship and loan repayment programs designed to improve healthcare in medically underserved areas. This past year, he was also named one of the 2006 commissioners for the California Emergency Medical Services Authority, which handles access to emergency care in the state.

"With improving technology and better tools and techniques, a golden age of medicine lies in the future for Californians," Dr. Mahal says. "We are living longer and are healthier than ever before. The challenge for the healthcare system is to find the resources so that all Californians can get timely and equal access to healthcare."

Dr. Mahal is on the American Medical Association's Commission to End Health Disparities. He serves on the board of directors of the India Community Center in Milpitas and on the board of trustees of the Sikh Foundation in Palo Alto. He is also a former chief of staff of Washington Hospital Healthcare System in Fremont.

Beth Karlan, MD
LACMA member since 1987
Karlan is a director of the Women's Cancer Research Institute at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Karlan joined with the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation to educate women about familial breast-ovarian cancer syndrome during Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month in September. Women with this syndrome have a 90 percent risk of developing breast and/or ovarian cancer during their lifetime, she says.

"Because of the high risk of cancer in families that carry this gene, it is extremely important for women to know their family history of these cancers," says Dr. Karlan, wife of former LACMA President Scott Karlan, MD. "This can be done through a simple blood test that is usually covered by insurance for women at genetic risk. If it is determined that a woman is at increased risk after undergoing genetic testing, she should discuss strategies for managing this risk with her healthcare provider, who can best suggest additional screening exams and risk-reduction strategies."

All women, however, should be screened regularly to help ensure that any existing cancers are identified at their earliest, most treatable stages, Dr. Karlan says. She recommends that women ages 30 to 40 have clinical breast exams every one to three years, while women age 40 or older have annual mammograms and clinical breast exams.

Mark E. Krugman, MD
OCMA member since 1997
Krugman, a Newport Beach plastic surgeon, was featured in an August Orange County Register article for giving burn victims Lydya Ponce and Kathya Espinosa hair and eyebrow transplants. The story reveals that Dr. Krugman performed the surgeries pro bono with the help of Christine Chen, an intradermal cosmetic technician, who designed the girls' eyebrows. The girls, both from Mexico, were in surgery for two and a half hours each at Dr. Krugman's surgery center in Santa Ana.

"The brows are the most challenging of hair implant surgeries," Dr. Krugman told the newspaper. "They require the most post-operative training and shaping of the hairs."

As patients at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Los Angeles, Ponce and Espinosa were referred to Dr. Krugman by Garry Brody, MD, a clinical professor of surgery at USC. "Dr. Brody was one of my professors when I was a resident at UCI," Dr. Krugman said. "So I agreed [to help] and some of my suppliers did, too."

Warren Johnston, MD
OCMA member since 1987
Johnston, a cardiologist at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange and an assistant clinical professor at UC Irvine School of Medicine, was featured in September's Orange Coast Magazine. He was discussing "An Evening Out," an event on Sept. 14 that raised public awareness of the American Heart Association's Go for Red campaign.

"By working together, the St. Joseph Hospital Women's Heart Center and the American Heart Association are helping empower women to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease," says Dr. Johnston, president of the Orange County chapter of the American Heart Association. An important part of the event is to get out the message that heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women each year, and also that it is largely preventable, he adds. "The best way to get a handle on these risk factors is to get a cardiovascular screening."

Held at the St. Joseph Hospital Outpatient Pavilion in Orange, the event consisted of a sampling of healthy hors d'oeuvres from local vendors, live entertainment and lectures from medical professionals on health topics targeted to women.

William H. Parker, MD
LACMA member since 1983
Parker, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Saint John's Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica, along with several other colleagues, authored an article in the August 2005 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, titled "Ovarian Conservation at the Time of Hysterectomy for Benign Disease." The study was also the subject of an article in the October 2006 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, titled "Keeping All Your Eggs in One Basket."

"Since the 1990s, it has been very common to remove a woman's ovaries if she has a hysterectomy and she is over the age of 45," says Dr. Parker, a clinical professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Our study found that women who have hysterectomies can actually have their ovaries left in, unless they have a strong family history of ovarian cancer. In fact, leaving the ovaries in can significantly reduce the risk of dying from heart disease and complications of osteoporosis."

Dr. Parker is also the author of the woman's health book, A Gynecologist's Second Opinion: The Questions and Answers You Need to Take Charge of Your Health and co-author of The Incontinence Solution: Answers for Women of All Ages. Currently, he is also an editor of the Journal of the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists.

Theodore Khalili, MD
LACMA member since 2003
Khalili, a Los Angeles gastroenterologist and director of the Center for Weight Loss Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, says the obesity epidemic will ultimately shorten the average person's life span, referencing a study by the University of Illinois in Chicago. The report reveals that, within the next 50 years, obesity will take two to five years off the average life span of 77.6 years.

"Life expectancy in the United States is predicted to drop due to obesity," Dr. Khalili says. "That implies that all the public health measures that were put into effect in the past two decades that contributed to the rise in the expected life span--including antibiotics, refrigeration, clean water and vaccines--are being reversed because of obesity."

In the past five years, Dr. Khalili and a team of surgeons specializing in bariatric surgery at Cedars-Sinai have performed more than 1,600 weight-loss surgeries. Surgery is one solution for obesity, but like any surgery, it must be carefully considered, he says. This is particularly true in the case of gastric bypass surgery, where the patient's eating habits must change quickly and permanently. Still, the outcomes of weight-loss surgery are beneficial.

"Two of the health effects we can measure after surgery and weight loss are blood pressure returning to normal and diabetes being eliminated in 80 percent to 90 percent of diabetic patients," Dr. Khalili says. "Also, when we take quality-of-life surveys, we can see a dramatic improvement. The patients feel better about themselves, so they're more social."