Volume 53, Number 3Summer 2002
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INTERVIEW
SCMA President Dan Lightfoot, MD
“I am highly optimistic about medicine and the medical community. It is a rewarding life, and doctors provide a much-needed service.
Sonoma County is just a great place to live.”
By Steve Osborn
FEATURE ARTICLES
New Physicians in Sonoma County
The Seven-Year Itch
“The change from 1995 to 2002 is remarkable. If you’re a pessimist, the numbers confirm that physicians have been leaving Sonoma County medicine in droves. If you’re an optimist, the data prove that physicians are arriving even faster than they’re departing.”
By Steve Osborn
Escape from New Jersey
“The medical community has been extremely welcoming. I say that, knowing full well that any physician who has been here more than five years could pull me aside and tell me a story about either the economics or the politics that would make my head spin.”
By Stefan Zechowy, MD
From Ochsner to NCMA
"In 1999, after 26 years of caring for rheumatology patients at the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans, I took a job with Northern California Medical Associates in Santa Rosa."
By Jack Waxman, MD
Coming Home
“Unlike some newly arrived Sonoma County physicians, Dr. Todd Weitzenberg’s decision to come to Santa Rosa wasn’t based solely on practice considerations, or the proximity of San Francisco, or even a love of fine wine. He simply wanted to come home, he says, to a city he calls ‘the greatest place to live on earth.’”
By Mark Sloan, MD
DEPARTMENTS
Local Frontiers: Endovascular Repair of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms
“The endovascular program is a successful example of a team approach to a complex process, with a regional hospital offering a cutting-edge technology previously available only in large academic centers.”
By Loie Sauer, MD
Outside the Office: The SCMA Alliance—75 Years of Service
“In 1939, the Women’s Auxiliary (now called the SCMA Alliance) adopted a mission statement that has since remained steadfast and clear: ‘To assist the Medical Association in the advancement of medicine and public health and to promote projects of health education and benevolent activities that improve the quality of life for everyone.’”
By Janet Polson
Medical Arts: Pagin’ Dr. Jazz
“If alternative medicine can be added to medical school curricula nationwide, then why not music? It would at least improve the dispositions of academics and would give students and doctors-in-training access to the best in low-tech medicine.”
By Armand Gelpi, MD
Practical Concerns: HIPAA Standards for Electronic Transactions
"The Department of Health and Human Services has establish national standards for electronic information, with common formats that are intelligible to all senders and receivers."
By Krista Rector
Current Books: Surgeon on the Run
“If James Bond were a physician, he would find a real-life equal in Jonathan Kaplan. In The Dressing Station, Dr. Kaplan takes us on a rich and fascinating adventure—dodging land mines, saving lives, and traveling in exotic parts of the world.”
By Heather Furnas, MD
