Dr. Abrams' expertise in the areas of hand and upper extremity problems, arthritis and complex elbow reconstruction has been widely recognized. He has been listed in The Best Doctors in America, Pacific Region, and has been selected as a Best Doctor in America. He has been recognized as one of San Diego's Top Doctors by San Diego Magazine for 5 out of the last 9 years and was selected as one of San Diego's Super Docs by the San Diego Union-Tribune.

He has been recognized as a Patient Choice Doctor and this year was listed by U.S. News & World report as being in the top 1 percent of Hand Surgeons and Orthopedic Surgeons.  He received the Vernon Nickel Teaching Award two years running, 1997 and 1998. In 1999 he was recognized for his teaching by the hand surgery fellows who had graduated over the previous ten years and received the Wayne Akeson resident teaching award in 2007.

He is a professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine, where holds the position of chief of hand and microvascular surgery and vice chair of the department of orthopaedics.

His work brings rewards and challenges. He sees the physician and the patient as a team, especially in complex reconstructive surgeries.

In addition to spending time with his family, Dr. Abrams likes skiing, bicycling, backpacking and music.

Dr. Abrams is Chief, Hand and Microvascular Surgery, past Director of UC San Diego Hand Surgery Fellowship, Vice Chairman, Department of Orthopaedics, Medical Director of the Hillcrest Outpatient Surgery Center.

UC San Diego Health System Links
For more information, see Orthopedic Surgery.

Dr. Achar is a primary care physician with fellowship training and certificate of added qualification in sports medicine. He is medical director of La Jolla Family and Sports Medicine and, from 2009 to 2011, was named a "Top Doctor" in family medicine by San Diego County Magazine and the San Diego County Medical Society.

Dr. Achar is the team physician of San Diego's professional indoor soccer franchise, the Sockers, UC San Diego intercollegiate athletes and Kearny High School. He is the medical director for the California State Games, an amateur youth competition involving 5,000 athletes in 20 sports.

Dr. Achar was inspired to become a physician after learning about the work of Doctors Without Borders, an international medical humanitarian organization. After completing medical school, he spent 6 months in Kenya as part of the program, providing medical care to children amid war and poverty. Dr. Achar feels the most rewarding aspect of being a physician is "having the opportunity to really make a difference when it counts."

Dr. Achar also works with clinical trials related to sports medicine research and is especially interested in looking at anabolic steroid use in children, adolescents and professional athletes.

Dr. Achar played high school tennis and soccer and was a member of the intercollegiate soccer team at the University of Poitiers, France. He continues to play and coach soccer and stay fit through running and strength training. When not working, Dr. Achar spends as much time as possible with his wife Suriti and three sons Ravi, Jivan and Rohan.

UC San Diego Health System Links
For more information, see Sports Medicine.

Dr. William Ackerman has been a clinical professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine since 1999. He is board-certified in internal medicine, geriatric medicine and pulmonary disease. Dr. Ackerman has practiced in our Concierge Medicine Program since early 2010. Dr. Ackerman has been recognized several times as a “Top Doctor" by San Diego Magazine.

Dr. Ackerman is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Alumni Association Award from SUNY School of Medicine and the Maimonines Medical Society Award. He has a seventh-degree black belt in karate.

Prior to joining UC San Diego Health System, he had more than 20 years of hospital and intensive care practice at Scripps La Jolla and Scripps Encinitas.

UC San Diego Health System Links
For more information, see Concierge Medicine.

I have enjoyed taking care of adolescent patients in the office setting, but have recently changed the focus of my practice. I am now one of the Adolescent Medicine attending physicians taking care of patients with eating disorders, at Rady Children's Hospital's medical/behavioral inpatient unit. This is challenging work, but rewarding when we see how children and teens can recover from their disorder with help from their families and professionals working to provide care and treatment.

The other focus of my job is evaluating and treating children who may have been abused. Child abuse is a difficult field to work in at times, but I feel it is important to be able to give care and help both the child and the families cope with the child's abuse experience and begin to heal.

My hobbies are hiking, traveling with my family to new places, reading good novels, cooking and listening to my sons play their guitars and own compositions.

Dr. Adams has been a pediatrician and medical school instructor since 1982, first in Kansas City, Kansas, then Fresno, California. She has been a faculty member at UC San Diego since 1995. Dr. Adams has been involved since 1986 in providing health care to children with suspected sexual abuse and is active in clinical practice, research, teaching and expert case review. She works at the Chadwick Center for Children and Families, Rady Children's Hospital and teaches Pediatric residents about sexual abuse as well as adolescent health. She was recently Board Certified in the new specialty of Child Abuse Pediatrics.

In academic medicine since completion of training. Past president of the American Society of Hematology.

Dr. Adler's clinical interests are in the care of patients with advanced heart failure, mechanical circulatory support and cardiac transplantation. He has a strong interest in the appropriate use of palliation in heart failure, and has written numerous review articles on the topic. He is also an investigator for numerous clinical trials for all stages of heart failure. Additionally, he has performed research specifically on the use of stem cells for the treatment of heart failure. His research, which is ongoing, resulted in publications in top journals and is supported by numerous funding agencies including the National Institute of Health and the American College of Cardiology.

Dr. Adler went to medical school at Boston University. He completed his internship and residency at the University of Washington and Cardiology Fellowship at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

UC San Diego Health System Links
For more information on cardiology at UC San Diego, see Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center.

In 1987, he was a recipient of the NIH Physician-Scientist Award. From 1987 to 1992, he served as Physician-Scientist Fellow at the University of California-San Diego Medical Center. During this time, he was a member of the UCSD Cancer Center.

Dr. Adler is co-founder and CEO of the San Diego Cancer Center, formerly known as the Oncology Medical Center of San Diego (1992), and also serves as President of the Medical Group of North County, Inc. Dr. Adler is also co-founder with Dr. Vicario of the San Diego Cancer Research Institute (2000).

Place of birth: Philadelphia, PA (1956).

In his leisure time Dr. Adler enjoys spending time with his wife Yanina and their four children.

In 2000 Dr. Adler joined the Board of Directors of WebMD (Nasdaq: HLTH), a Corporation that provides a full suite of on-line services to the healthcare industry aiming to improve administrative efficiencies and high quality patient care. Prior to this he was a director of CareInsite (Nasdaq: CARI).

UC San Diego Health System Links
For more information on cancer treatment at UC San Diego, see Moores Cancer Center.

Raised in Miami, Florida, Dr. Advani graduated from the University of Chicago in 1992 with a BS in Biological Chemistry and then received his MD from the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine in 1999. Following graduation from medical school, he did a post-doctoral fellowship working on combining gene therapy with radiotherapy. He then completed his medical training by doing a surgical internship at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland followed by a return to Chicago for his residency in Radiation Oncology at the University of Chicago where he was named Chief Resident.

Dr. Advani was recruited to UC San Diego to serve as Director of Radiobiology and Biotechnologies. His research interests are focused on combining gene therapy with radiation therapy as well as the development of novel radiosensitizers to improve the efficacy of radiotherapy. He is co-investigator of NIH/NCI funded research, and his laboratory research has served as the basis for a recently opened Phase I clinical trial at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.

Dr. Advani sees patients with prostate cancer and other malignancies at the UC San Diego South Bay Radiation Oncology Treatment Center in Chula Vista.

UC San Diego Health System Links
For more information, see Radiation Oncology.
For more information on cancer treatment at UC San Diego, see Moores Cancer Center.

Dr. Afshar joined the Division of Hospital Medicine faculty in September 2010.

He received his MD degree from the University of Texas, Galveston, in 2007. In 2010, he completed his internal medicine residency at the Scripps Clinic/Green Hospital in La Jolla, California. Dr. Afshar also holds an MBA degree from Texas A&M University.

He currently holds a California Medical License and is board certified in Internal Medicine.