There’s No Monopoly on Service

I’ve always maintained that my dad and West Point (1994) made me the man that I am today while UCLA (1998) made me the doctor I am today. Today when people see me in uniform or see my military ID, most of them stop to say “Thank you for your service.” While I appreciate the gratitude and sentiment (and quite often the beers…especially the beers), I want to tell them that the military does not have a monopoly on service. Sure, I am proud of my two bronze star medals, earned during my three deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq…but these aren’t the accomplishments my family is most proud of.
- In His Own Words by LTC Anthony “AJ” Johnson, M.D. ’98
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2012 Alumnus of the Year

Kenneth W. Kizer, M.D. ’76, M.P.H. ’76 was honored by the UCLA Medical Alumni Association (MAA) Board with the 2012 Alumnus of the Year Award. Dr. Kizer is an internationally recognized healthcare thought leader, change agent, and quality improvement and patient safety advocate. He has been elected to both the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Public Administration. The transformation of the nation’s Veterans Healthcare System that he engineered in the 1990s is widely viewed as the largest and most successful healthcare “turnaround” in U.S. history. Dr. Kizer received his award during the MAA Reunion Weekend 2012 on Saturday, Oct. 6.

Class Scholarships Awarded

On Sept. 14, the MAA Board approved the following students as the 2012-13 June and Sherman Mellinkoff Scholarship recipients. Congratulations to: Neema Izadi, Asian Pirouz, David Tran, Lucy Chow and Marizabel Orellana.

Thanks to the generosity of alumni in the classes of 1955, ’61, ’62, ’75, ’76, ’79 and ’81, the MAA awarded seven medical student scholarships for the 2012-13 academic year. Read about the class scholars.

Congratulations to:
Maria Aleshin, 1955 Class Scholar
Menna M. Archie, 1961 Class Scholar
Yas Sanaiha, 1962 Class Scholar
Caitlin L. McGrath, 1975 Class Scholar
Toni Riveros, 1976 Class Scholar
Se Fum “Steve” Wong, 1979 Class Scholar
Hanna Shull, 1981 Class Scholar

UCLA Program in Global Health

The UCLA Program in Global Health is looking for alumni volunteers to give a Global Health Selective lecture to current medical students, participate in Global Health Awareness Week and/or serve as mentors.
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MAA 2012 Reunion Weekend

Medical alumni returned to Westwood on Oct. 5-6 to reconnect with classmates and the medical school.
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“Our reunion event was very well planned and executed, and I felt very ‘fussed over!’”
Loretta Milburn, M.D. ’62, Lyons, Colorado

Sheila Overton, M.D. ’83 - After spending over a decade chairing the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles, Dr. Overton channeled her passion for the subject into a book called Before It’s Too Late: What Parents Need to Know About Teen Pregnancy and STD Prevention [ www.droverton.org ]. She is married, with two adult children and is in private practice in Silver Springs, MD.

Edward M. Kolb, M.D. ’82 was recently appointed to the position of medical director for Boys Town National Research Hospital and Clinics. In January he and his wife adopted their youngest child from China, a darling four-year-old little girl. She joins four older Chinese brothers, two teenage boys adopted from Romania and three adult birth children.

Catherine Campion-Ritz, M.D. ’80 was killed in a hit and run accident in Newport Beach on Sept. 15. She was cycling, her favorite release from the busy world of medicine. She was a talented and caring physician with a well respected family practice in the Hoag community. She served as medical director of Newport Family Medicine and president of the Greater Newport Physicians.

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Alumni and Friends Reception
Sunday, Nov. 4, 10:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Intercontinental Hotel, San Francisco, CA
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Save The Date:
MAA Reunion Weekend 2013
Oct. 4-5