The Department of Medicine is committed to excellence and innovation in patient care, to providing leadership in medical education and to advancing basic, translational and clinical research. The department is the largest at the Keck School of Medicine and has 725 full-time and voluntary faculty members who care for patients at a large number of hospitals in the Los Angeles area, including USC University Hospital, USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital, Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, Hospital of the Good Samaritan and LAC+USC Medical Center.

National and International Recognition

"Best Doctors in America"

• Ron Ben-Ari, MD
• Vito M. Campese, MD
• Edward D. Crandall, PhD., MD
• Dan Douer, MD
• Glenn Ehresmann, MD
• Uri Elkayam, MD
• Tse-Ling Fong, MD
• Cage S. Johnson, MD
• Michael Kline, MD
• Robert A. Kloner, MD
• Loren A. Laine, MD
• Heinz-Josef Lenz, MD
• Alexandra M. Levine, MD
• Howard A. Liebman, MD
• Karen Lindsay, MD, MMM
• Anne L. Peters, MD
• Gerald M. Pohost, MD
• Francisco Quismorio Jr., MD
• Leslie Anne Saxon,MD
• Peter A. Singer, MD
• Jeffrey S. Weber, MD 
• Ilene C. Weitz, MD

"America's Top Doctors"*

• Uri Elkayam, MD
• Glenn Ehresmann, MD
• Donald Feinstein, MD
• Alexandra Levine, MD
• Francisco Quismorio, Jr. MD

Kaplowitz receives liver society’s highest honor»
Neil Kaplowitz, director of the USC Center for Liver Diseases and the Thomas Brem/USC Associates Professor of Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, has been named recipient of the 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

Going Straight to the Heart »
The Keck School of Medicine of USC’s department of medicine and the USC Institute for Genetic Medicine have added a highly regarded electrophysiologist and developmental biologist to its faculty, adding momentum to growing translational research efforts in cardiovascular medicine. Mohammad Pashmforoush, from UC San Francisco, joined the division of cardiovascular medicine as a visiting assistant professor in September.

Innovative new USC/Norris researchers begin to make their mark»
One minute Allen Yang is an oncologist, caring for patients with leukemia. The next, he is a basic scientist, exposing cancer cells in his lab to an experimental drug that may soon join medicine’s cancer-fighting arsenal.

Yang is one of a number of new recruits who joined the faculty at USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center over the past year. He and fellow faculty member Ana Aparicio, assistant professor of medicine, add further punch to translational research underway at USC/Norris.

Study tests new drug against pancreatic cancer»
Heinz-Josef Lenz, associate professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, is principal investigator on the trial, which ultimately aims to add much-needed options to medicine’s sparse arsenal against pancreatic cancer. Cancer of the pancreas causes about 27,000 deaths each year in the United States alone.

Howard Hodis named Bauer/Rawlins Professor in Cardiology»
Howard N. Hodis, director of the USC Atherosclerosis Research Unit, has been named the Harry J. Bauer and Dorothy Bauer Rawlins Professor of Cardiology.

Keck School physician-scientist Shelly Lu honored by Western Society for Clinical Investigation»
Shelly Lu accepted the honor on Feb. 3 at the joint plenary session of the Western Society for Clinical Investigation, Western Association of Physicians, Western Society for Pediatric Research, and Western Section of the American Federation for Medical Research. The session was held in Carmel, Calif.

A doctor who makes house calls? A traditional practice returns»
Wayne Chen, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School, hopes to eliminate this obstacle by bringing the doctor to the patient. As director of the USC Home Visit Program, Chen and a nurse treat homebound seniors three afternoons a week, providing care to those ages 65 years and older who have difficulty leaving their homes to attend medical appointments.

Keck School expert teams up to battle HIV drug resistance»
Despite medicine’s growing arsenal of potent therapies against HIV, some HIV patients become resistant to drugs—often because they cannot keep up with demanding drug regimens. So physicians such as Kathleen Squires, associate professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, now work with counseling teams that help patients adhere to their schedules.

USC/Norris researchers test drug that blocks colon cancer cells ability to proliferate»
Oncologists at the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center have begun testing a new type of chemotherapy for colorectal cancer that kills cancer cells by stunting their ability to multiply.

NCI gives $12.8 million for USC/Norris-led cancer study»
The National Cancer Institute has pledged $12.8 million to continue the California Teachers Study, an expansive study of cancer among female schoolteachers that is led by USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers.