Thomas Horowitz, DO
LACMA member since 1984
Thomas Horowitz, DO, a family practitioner in Los Angeles, was named in May to the board of governors of L.A. Care Health Plan, the Los Angeles-area insurer for Medi-Cal beneficiaries and children whose families cannot afford private insurance coverage.

"I'm hoping to bring something to the table, but when you look at how much they do with the budget they have, it's an incredible organization," Dr. Horowitz says. "I hope I can be helpful, and that I can reflect issues that are of concern to the medical community."

The Los Angeles Medical Association selects someone for the L.A. Care board of governors to represent area physicians, and this year the association nominated Dr. Horowitz to fill the vacancy left when Robert Tranquada, MD, stepped down after holding the seat for more than a decade. The board is composed of 13 members representing various stakeholders, such as the Los Angeles County Community Clinics Association, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and of course, local physicians.

Through its four coverage avenues--Medi-Cal, Direct Medi-Cal, Healthy Families and Healthy Kids--L.A. Care serves about 775,500 people, which makes it the largest public health plan in the United States, according to the organization.

"It's an honor to be in the room with the people I'm working with, and hopefully I can represent physicians as well as Bob Tranquada has done it," Dr. Horowitz says. "He was my first boss when I was a student professional worker at the [Los Angeles County] health department before I went into medicine," he says. "We literally go back to the beginning of my career in healthcare."

Stanley Galant, MD
OCMA member since 1973
Dr. Galant, a pediatric allergy specialist in Orange, showed off his Breathmobile to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other attendees of the International Conference on the Asthma Impacts of Air Pollution, which the South Coast Air Quality Management District held in late April at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim.

The Breathmobile educates patients and school staff about asthma and provides data for epidemiological and clinical tool research. However, patient care is its primary mission. "Gov. Schwarzenegger visited with me in the van and asked some very good questions about what we do and what's unique about our program," says Dr. Galant, who is medical director of Children's Hospital of Orange County's Breathmobile Program. "Essentially, I told him that we eliminate the barriers to care, which are logistical--being out in the community; ethnic--everybody speaks Spanish; and cost--we don't bill the patient, [but] we bill their insurance if they have it [and] we find them a medical home for primary care."

The governor was also interested in the Breathmobile's results. "We've had very good outcomes in decreasing healthcare utilization, [emergency room] visits, hospitalizations, and school absenteeism," Dr. Galant says.

The governor delivered the asthma conference's keynote address with a speech focusing on the future of California healthcare and the impact of his reform plan on the quality of asthma care, according to a statement from his office.

Dr. Galant's Breathmobile has been an official CHOC program since September 2003, visiting children in needy Orange County schools, CHOC clinics and at home. Staffed with a full-time allergist, a nurse and a driver, the van hosts about 150 to 200 asthmatic children a month, he says. "It's a wonderful opportunity because we see such a huge number of basically untreated patients," he adds.

Jack Moore, MD
LACMA member since 1971
Dr. Moore, who practices anesthesiology in Bellflower, received the California Society of Anesthesiologists' Distinguished Service Award on June 2. CSA officials say they do not give out the award on a regular basis, preferring to restrict recipients to the organization's "most legendary" leaders.

In his remarks to the audience attending the CSA's annual meeting in San Diego, former CSA President Stephen Jackson, MD, said the award recognized not only Dr. Moore's service to the organization, but also to other groups and communities.

Dr. Moore has been president of Los Angeles County Medical Association District 1, president of the Los Angeles County Society of Anesthesiologists, chief of the Department of Anesthesiology at Kaiser Permanente, and coordinator and chief for Kaiser Permanente's Southern California region. He's held a 25-year membership in the American Society of Anesthesiologists House of Delegates and has been a member of the ASA's Standards of Care Committee.

Within the CSA, Dr. Moore served as a member of the board of directors for 10 years, and as CSA president in 1991. During his tenure as president, Dr. Moore established the CSA's Resident Research Forum under which anesthesiology residents submit research papers to compete for presentation at the CSA annual meeting.

Encouraging service in others, Dr. Moore ended his acceptance speech at the CSA meeting saying: "Remember, blessings flow when we contribute our services to our communities. It is important that we give to the less fortunate."

William Wesley Fields, MD
OCMA member since 1987
Greg Super, MD
OCMA member since 1982

Drs. Fields and Super were both recognized by the California Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians at the organization's annual awards luncheon on June 1.

Dr. Fields, an emergency medicine specialist in Laguna Hills, won the Walter T. Edwards Award for Meritorious Service to the Members of CAL/ACEP. "The award was presented to him because of his work with our California Emergency Medicine Advocacy Fund, which is a program ... based on a 20-cents-per-patient-visit contribution [by physician groups] to political advocacy efforts," says Myles Riner, MD, former president of the organization.

"The fund has been very successful in gaining support for CAL/ACEP's political advocacy efforts around the state and in the capital--successful to the point where I think we've collected almost as much money from emergency physicians in California to support political advocacy as has been collected by our national association--the American College of Emergency Physicians--for its [political action committee]," Dr. Riner says.

The approximately 3-year-old fund has supported the introduction of state legislation; advocacy fellows, who do political advocacy for CAL/ACEP on a part-time basis; the services of a lobbying firm; and a legislative assistant, Dr. Riner says.

Dr. Super, a Newport Beach emergency medicine specialist, won CAL/ACEP's EMS Achievement Award. He advanced emergency care by developing three innovations--the Simple Triage and Rapid Transport method, a response to mass casualty incidents, and accelerated door-to-balloon time.

In about 1983, Dr. Super and colleagues at Hoag Memorial Hospital developed the START plan to allow first responders to triage victims at the scene of a disaster using easily measured factors, such as pulse rate and amplitude, respiratory rate and depth, and level of mental status. "We thought ... in a year or two it would be an antiquated plan," Dr. Super says. "But as the years went by, nobody was able to improve it." The plan is currently in use all over the developed world.

The Mass Casualty Incident plan, which he developed with Hoag colleagues in the early 1990s, established communication conventions for field paramedics and hospitals to use to distinguish numerous victims of the same incident.

Another innovation introduced about three years ago, called Code 60, allows hospitals and paramedics to take advantage of newer cardiac monitor-defibrillators to diagnose heart attacks, thereby minimizing the time between a patient's arrival and an angioplasty. "We recognized that the paramedics could alert the hospital that they were bringing in a heart attack victim, and the hospital could then ready its [catheterization laboratory], get the cardiologist onsite, and have a team of people available to meet the patient," Dr. Super says.