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Raising the bar on excellence

More doctors recognized than any other Orange County health system

January 05, 2021

UCI Health is home to 174 doctors who have been named 2021 Physicians of Excellence by the Orange County Medical Association, more than any other health system in Orange County.

This prestigious honor, announced in the January 2021 issue of Orange Coast magazine, is bestowed by the volunteer physician organization as part of its mission to promote the art and science of medicine, the protection of public health and the betterment of the medical profession.

The complete list includes more than 560 Orange County physicians in 75 specialties. The magazine is on newsstands now.

This year, UCI Health received its 13th consecutive "A" grade for patient safety from The Leapfrog Group and was listed among America’s Best Hospitals for the 20th year in a row by U.S. News & World Report. The report highlights the excellence of UCI Health programs in gynecology, No. 16, Urology, No. 24, Nephrology, No. 43, and geriatrics, No. 45, among similar programs nationally. The medical center is ranked No. 5 in the Los Angeles metropolitan region. 

UCI Health doctors practice across the region. In addition to UCI Medical Center in Orange, primary and specialty care locations include Gottschalk Medical Plaza in Irvine and offices in Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Orange, Placentia, Tustin and Yorba Linda.

In coastal Orange County, UCI Health specialty care in cancer, breast health, digestive diseases, plastic surgery, neurosurgery and dermatology is available in Costa Mesa. Urology, executive health, behavioral health and sleep medicine services are available at the UCI Health Newport — Birch Street. And integrative services in cardiology, gastroenterology, pain management, dermatology, sports medicine and plastic surgery are offered at UCI Health — Newport Beach, which opened in August, 2020.

To be eligible for OCMA recognition, physicians are required to:

  • Be certified by a member board of the American Board of Medical Specialties, a member board of the American Board of Osteopathic Medical Specialties, or an equivalency board recognized by the Medical Board of California or Osteopathic Medical Board of California
  • Be in good standing with the Medical Board of California or Osteopathic Medical Board of California
  • Maintain a primary practice in Orange County for the last five years
  • Be in practice within his/her specialty for the last five years

Physicians were required to demonstrate achievements in at least two of the following criteria: physician leadership; teaching/mentoring; medical research/scientific advances; and humanitarian service.

UCI Health 2021 Physicians of Excellence

Anesthesiology
Kyle S. Ahn, MD
Ashley Broussard, MD
Scott A. Engwall, MD
Anna L. Harris, MD
Richard J. Kelly, MD
Debra Morrison, MD
Ariana M. Nelson, MD
Corey K. Nelson, MD
Kyle P. Paredes, MD
Shermeen B. Vakharia, MD
William C. Wilson, MD

Blood Banking & Transfusion Medicine
Minh-Ha Tran, DO

Cardiovascular Disease
Ihab Alomari, MD
Jin Kyung Kim, MD
Shaista Malik, MD
Pranav M. Patel, MD
Satinder Swaroop, MD

Child Psychiatry
Anju Hurria, MD

Colon and Rectal Surgery
Joseph C. Carmichael, MD
Steven D. Mills, MD
Michael J. Stamos, MD

Dermatology
Kristen M. Kelly, MD
Patrick K. Lee, MD
Janellen Smith, MD

Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics
Peter Chung, MD

Diagnostic Radiology
Arash Anavim, MD
Joseph E. Burns, MD
Freddie Combs, MD
Stephen A. Feig, MD
Maryam Golshan-Momeni, MD
Mohammad Helmy, MD
Roozbeh Houshyar, MD

Emergency Medicine
Robert J. Katzer, MD
Shadi Lahham, MD
Shahram Lotfipour, MD
Megan B. Osborn, MD
Shannon L. Toohey, MD
Warren Wiechmann, MD
Alisa V. Wray, MD

Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism
Andrew R. Reikes, MD

Facial Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery
Brian J.F. Wong, MD

Family Medicine
José Mayorga, MD
Tan Q. Nguyen, MD
Charles P. Vega, MD
Baotran N. Vo, MD

Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery
Felicia L. Lane, MD

Gastroenterology
Kenneth J. Chang, MD
William E. Karnes, MD
John G. Lee, MD
Nimisha K. Parekh, MD
Jason Samarasena, MD

Genetics
Virginia Kimonis, MD

Geriatric Medicine
Lisa Gibbs, MD
Sonia R. Sehgal, MD

Gynecologic Oncology
Krishnansu Tewari, MD

Hematology
Lauren Pinter-Brown, MD
Richard A. Van Etten, MD

Internal Medicine
Ke-Qin Hu, MD
Bavani Nadeswaran, MD
Maryam Rahimi, MD
Bindu Swaroop, MD

Internal Medicine with a focused practice in Hospital Medicine
Alpesh N. Amin, MD
Shiho Ito, MD
Samuel Y. Lai, MD
Virgil S. Raymundo, MD

Maternal-Fetal Medicine
Judith H. Chung, MD
Afshan B. Hameed, MD
Tamera J. Hatfield, MD
Jennifer A. Jolley, MD
Carol A. Major, MD
Manuel Porto, MD

Medical Oncology
Deepa Jeyakumar, MD
Nataliya Mar, MD
Khosrow Mahdavi, MD
Edward L. Nelson, MD
Jason A. Zell, DO

Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
Muhammad Aslam, MD
Fayez Bany-Mohammed, MD
Rebecca J. Coleman, MD
Yona Nicolau, MD
Cherry Uy, MD

Nephrology
Yongen Chang, MD
Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh, MD
Hamid Moradi, MD
Uttam Reddy, MD
Connie Rhee, MD

Neurology
Yama Akbari, MD
Daniela A. Bota, MD, PhD
Cyrus K. Dastur, MD
Mark J. Fisher, MD
Namita A. Goyal, MD
Xiao-Tang Kong, MD
Jack J. Lin, MD
Lilit Mnatsakanyan, MD
Tahseen Mozaffar, MD
Mona Sazgar, MD
Gaby Thai, MD

Neurosurgery
Jefferson Chen, MD, PhD
Kiarash Golshani, MD
Frank P.K. Hsu, MD, PhD
Mark E. Linskey, MD
Sumeet Vadera, MD

Nuclear Medicine
Tatiana Kain, MD

Obstetrics & Gynecology
Jennifer Butler, MD
Tabetha R. Harken, MD
Christine Kim, MD
Michael Krychman, MD
Rachel Perry, MD
Dinh Q. Vu, MD

Ophthalmology
R. Wade Crow, MD
Roger Crumley, MD
Marjan Farid, MD
Sumit (Sam) Garg, MD
Baruch D. Kuppermann, MD
Ken Y. Lin, MD
Robert W. Lingua, MD
Stephanie Y. Lu, MD
Mitul C. Mehta, MD
Sameh Mosaed, MD
Jeremiah P. Tao, MD
Matthew W. Wade, MD

Orthopedic Surgery
Nitin N. Bhatia, MD
Ranjan Gupta, MD
Andrew R. Hsu, MD
Yu-Po Lee, MD
John A. Scolaro, MD
David H. So, MD

Otolaryngology/Head & Neck Surgery
William B. Armstrong, MD
Naveen D. Bhandarkar, MD
Roger L. Crumley, MD
Hamid R. Djalilian, MD
Harrison Lin, MD
Sunil P. Verma, MD

Pathology
Sherif A. Rezk, MD

Pediatrics
Behnoosh Afghani, MD
Melitza Cobham-Browne, MD
Daniel Kang, MD
Penny R. Murata, MD
Hanh-Uyen Nguyen-Tang, MD
Leticia C. Oliveros, MD
Robin B. Steinberg-Epstein, MD
Tommy Wang, MD

Pediatric Cardiology
Anjan S. Batra, MD
Nafiz Kiciman, MD

Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
Danielle Perret Karimi, MD

Plastic Surgery
Gregory Evans, MD
Daniel C. Jaffurs, MD
Raj M. Vyas, MD

Psychiatry
Rimal B. Bera, MD
Adrian Preda, MD
David Safani, MD

Rheumatology
Sheetal Desai, MD

Surgery
Cristobal Barrios Jr., MD
Nicole P. Bernal, MD
Donald Dafoe, MD
Marcelo W. Hinojosa, MD
David K. Imagawa, MD, PhD
James G. Jakowatz, MD
Karen T. Lane, MD
Michael E. Lekawa, MD
Ninh T. Nguyen, MD
Brian R. Smith, MD
Maki Yamamoto, MD

Urology
Judy Choi, MD
Ralph V. Clayman, MD
Joel Gelman, MD
Gamal M. Ghoniem, MD
Mark L. Jordan, MD
Jaime Landman, MD
Ross Moskowitz, MD
Edward Uchio, MD

Vascular Neurology
Shuichi Suzuki, MD

Vascular Surgery
Roy M. Fujitani, MD
Nii-Kabu Kabutey, MD
Isabella J. Kuo, MD

UCI Health is the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine. Patients can access UCI Health at primary and specialty care offices across Orange County and at its main campus, UCI Medical Center in Orange, Calif. The 418-bed acute-care hospital, listed among America’s Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report for 20 consecutive years, provides tertiary and quaternary care, ambulatory and specialty medical clinics, as well as behavioral health and rehabilitation services. UCI Medical Center is home to Orange County’s only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, high-risk perinatal/neonatal program and American College of Surgeons-verified Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center and regional burn center. It is the primary teaching hospital for the UCI School of Medicine. UCI Health serves a region of nearly 4 million people in Orange County, western Riverside County and southeast Los Angeles County. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.