The Best of North County 2016

Every time I drive past Jacobs Medical Center, that hospital with a mirrored façade on the 5 near La Jolla Village Drive, I wave to my dad’s old lungs. Even though his lung transplant was almost two years ago—and in a different building, the Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center 200 feet away—I still imagine his original lungs resting in some nice, shaded dumpster outside Jacobs. They were actually taken to a lab for UC San Diego’s medical students to learn about pulmonary fibrosis, an altruistic second chapter of their life, but in my daydreams, they’re just hanging out in some hospital dumpster speakeasy with other jettisoned organs.

My dad is still kickin’ because of the medical staff at UC San Diego Health (and because of one very kind anonymous organ donor). I don’t just mean his team of doctors who performed the actual surgery; I also mean his nurses, physical therapists, case manager, social worker, transplant coordinators—it takes a village. And that village not only educated me, my mom, and my brother on what my dad was going through, it also kept us calm(ish). As calm as you could be before your dad gets his lungs yoinked out of his body.

During all of this, my family learned that UCSD is the place to go if you need a lung transplant. Its résumé of successful transplant surgeries dates as far back as 1968, and patient survival rates exceed the national average. How lucky were we that our local hospital is the transplant destination for people coming as far as the Middle East. Lung transplants are new in terms of human history—the world’s first successful double lung transplant, the same one my dad got, was in 1986. My dad’s surgery was one of 54 lung transplants that UCSD performed that year. The biggest day of our lives was just an average Tuesday for his doctors. And that’s kind of how you want it.

UCSD helped me and my family, but San Diego’s healthcare system as a whole ranks as one of the top in the country. We have the most hospital beds per population than any other city in the US, and Scripps, Sharp, Palomar, and Kaiser all rank near the top nationally. The whole county’s the epicenter of medical innovation. People like Luca De Vivo Nicoloso and Joshua Pelz saw the flaws in traditional prosthesis development and used a 3D printer and inspiration from the unique skeleton of cholla cacti to create a groundbreaking solution. Also, care at home seems to be a long universal dream, and a few San Diego designers are reimagining home design to cope with the physical challenges of aging and disability while maintaining the elements that make a home feel like home.

And if you’re confronted with a diagnosis that rattles your sense of agency within your own body, what do you do? Mastectomy surgeries can leave scars that turn a part of your body—one tied to personal identity—into a visual reminder of trauma. We feature Pacific Beach–based artist Shane Wallin, who has spent years helping people with scars reclaim their personal space with elaborate, gender-affirming tattoos. He’s even on the board of directors for the Alliance of Medical Tattooing. Even though he’s not a doctor per se, he’s a part of San Diego’s distinct medical ecosystem. We all are.

I’d like to close with a personal plea: Be an organ donor. An organ donor saved my dad’s life. I receive the benefit of a stranger’s generosity every time I come home. Whenever I’m done in this realm, hopefully a long time from now, I hope I get to be that generous, too. In the meantime, I’ll keep waving to that old lung by that shiny building off the 5, on my way to see my dad.

For over two decades, the San Diego County Medical Society (SDCMS) has worked collaboratively with San Diego Magazine to recognize physicians who are held in the highest regard by their peers. Votes and nominations are open to all physicians in San Diego. The voting physicians are asked to vote for physicians within and outside their specialty to whom they would refer their friends and family. Through this process we have identified 968 physicians in 102 specialties.

In a synchronized effort, SDCMS confirmed every individual nominee’s Medical Board of California licensing and current practicing status. Through this exhaustive process, 968 physicians are being honored this year. Many of them have also been recognized for multiple years since we began publishing this list. Multi-year honorees will have the number of years they have been selected listed in brackets behind their name.

Although not all our superb physicians are represented on this list, we still acknowledge and appreciate their contributions. The selection criteria are strict, with only a small percent of physicians selected in each specialty. Many additional physicians received multiple votes from their peers, however, did not reach the threshold to be on the list. The best choice of physician for a patient includes many factors and we all work hard to meet their needs. We are proud to recognize that all physicians in San Diego work collaboratively to provide the very best care for all.

We welcome and encourage all San Diego County physicians to participate in their county and state medical societies as we work toward the SDCMS vision: “Physicians United for a Healthy San Diego.” The strength of our united voice as a medical community depends on the leadership and advocacy of all of us. We appreciate the assistance of all the physicians who voted, and we thank San Diego Magazine for their support.

Congratulations to all of our 2026 Top Doctor selectees! For more information regarding membership, voting, future events and becoming more involved with the medical society, visit www.SDCMS.org. 

---

San Diego Top Doctors List 2026

* Brackets denote the number of years chosen as a Top Doctor

Abdominal Surgery

Garth Ross Jacobsen, MD [4]
UC San Diego Health
9300 Campus Point Dr, MC 7220
La Jolla, CA 92037
(858) 657-7025

Addiction Medicine

Long H Nguyen, MD [2]
Kaiser Permanente
3420 Kenyon St
San Diego, CA 92110
(800) 290-5000

Addiction Psychiatry

Kimberly A Fitzgerald, MD [2]
Kaiser Permanente
3420 Kenyon St, Bldg B 1st Floor
San Diego, CA 92110
(800) 290-5000

Adolescent Medicine

Azadeh Shirazi, MD [2]
Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group
16899 W Bernardo Dr, 1st Floor
San Diego, CA 92127
(858) 499-2777

Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology

Dalia Abadeer Banks, MD [8]
UC San Diego Health
9500 Gilman Dr, MC 0898
La Jolla, CA 92093
(858) 657-6510

Adam Brent Barrus, MD [3]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Francesca Betti, MD [2]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Arsh Chopra, MD [1]
Kaiser Permanente
360 Rush Dr
San Marcos, CA 92078
(800) 290-5000

William T Connell, MD [12]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Andres Falabella, MD [2]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Alexander M Girgis, MD [5]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Austin J Henry, DO [3]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Paul James Himaya, MD [7]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Brian Alexander Janda, MD [2]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Tse-Sun Ku, MD [9]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Jason Philip Lujan, MD [17]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Kris Cheryl Lukauskis, MD [1]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Lars R Newsome, MD [20]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Deena Helen Perotti, MD [1]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Gabriel Rene Rubio, MD [2]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Alaa Saghbini, MD [3]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

David Maged Seif, MD [8]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Edward Harding Sherer, MD [4]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Kevin James Staggenborg, MD [2]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Sepehr Shokri Tabibzadeh, MD [12]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

Kris Kishore Vasant, MD [2]
Anesthesia Service Medical Group
3626 Ruffin Rd
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 565-9666

There was once an actress known as “San Diego’s Sweetheart” who mailed herself to Los Angeles—donning a helmet covered in postage stamps and boarding a two-seater, single-engine mail plane. The publicity stunt was billed as the first air parcel package in the US. It wasn’t. She wasn’t even the first human to be mailed: When the US parcel post started in 1913, at least seven people mailed their newborns to relatives (an innovative loophole eventually outlawed).

Technicalities be damned. That kind of nose for spectacle was why Virginia Brissac was such a star—landing bit parts in TV shows (I Love Lucy, Dragnet) and 155 films, notably playing James Dean’s grandmother in Rebel Without a Cause. “Nobody could help but love her,” her dresser told San Diego Magazine in a 1971 feature, published when Brissac was 88 years old.

In 1911, she topped the Playbill at the opening of the Savoy Theatre at 3rd and C streets in Downtown—a grand live-performance hall built for $150,000 ($5.2 million in today’s money). It became one of the premiere vaudeville theaters in the country (under vaudeville king Alexander Patages). The theater helped make San Diego a destination for stars like silent-film comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey, plus classical legends Rachmaninoff and Anna Pavlova. As theaters converted to movie houses through the ’20s and ’30s, the Savoy remained dedicated to live humans. It closed in 1940, and the Civic Theater now stands in its footprint.

As for Brissac, during a time when women couldn’t even vote, she led a stock company under her own name at the Strand Theatre. The Brissac Company held a four-year residency, “an all-time successful record run for San Diego,” the article says. That classic Ocean Beach theater (featured in San Diego film legend Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous) has been closed for decades, its bones now a chain beachwear and souvenir store. But Brissac’s legacy lives through the women leading San Diego’s theater scene.

Read the entire 1971 article by Merle Clayton below…

Jonathon Glus is the Prebys Foundation senior fellow leading the development of the Art + Design District at the Downtown San Diego Partnership. He has been asked what an arts and design district is many times. In our conversation, I asked him instead to describe what it isn’t. His answer opened up a broader discussion about what San Diego has and hasn’t invested in, what it has the capacity to become, and what other cities have done that we haven’t. Glus speaks about global art fairs and architecture biennials in Chicago and long tables at dinner parties all with the same fluency. He also discusses who gets to live in the neighborhoods where creative work happens, and what it means when they can’t afford to stay.

Claire Johnson: You have been asked what an arts and design district is many times. Can you tell me what it isn’t?

Jonathon Glus: It is not a place designed intentionally and specifically for tourists. Of course there will be opportunities for tourists to come, but the district is really focused on creatives, on creative education, and on the creative workforce—as well as our major performing arts organizations. That is the emphasis.

What does the district need to do in the next five years for you to consider it a success?

[It needs to] develop greater connectivity between the anchor institutions—the symphony, Broadway San Diego, the opera, all the wonderful things happening in Balboa [Park]—and the creative workforce that will be living and working in that neighborhood 24/7.

What does San Diego not have that you wish it did?

We have not been intentionally investing in the contemporary art product that other major cities have been building. A contemporary art fair. A biennial that reflects the ethos of this region. Chicago developed an architecture biennial about eight years ago. London has a design biennial. Desert X, right here in Southern California, invests in and elevates contemporary artists inside a city. We have not really been playing in the global art market in a way that we have the capacity to.

What capacity do we have?

We have a wonderful foundation. Two theater companies that produce work that goes to Broadway more than many regional theaters in the country, major museums, artists teaching at UC San Diego and University of San Diego. What a city does when it wants to take itself to the next level is intentionally create the product. Miami went after the Art Basel fair; they did not passively receive it. You have to have the intention and the will, and you have to go after it. We haven’t done that in the way that other cities have.

Look at what we did with the tech sector; we’re now a major tech center. That was intentional. Leadership organized around it. We have to do the same thing around the arts. We have a lot of contemporary art collectors here. We have a lot of galleries. But the ecosystem of the business of contemporary art is not as organized or as visible as it should be.

Which city is your North Star?

It’s bits and pieces of different cities. Dubai has invested very quickly and very intentionally in contemporary art—art fairs, design fairs, higher education, artist residencies from all over the world. London has centered artists and creatives in the contemporary zeitgeist in a way that was not true 40 years ago. They built biennials. They ensured British artists had affordable housing and workspace. They made sure the media paid attention to what they were doing.

If you don’t have an artist at your dinner table, it’s not a dinner party. That sounds elitist, but it’s true. It shows the value that artists have in a community. Our relationship culturally with Tijuana is really significant here because artists in Baja seem to be at the table.

We’ve talked before about how food, fashion, design, and art aren’t siloed anymore.

They aren’t. When super creative people are in a community doing extraordinary work, that draws other super creative people doing extraordinary work. That’s why other arts and design districts around the world end up populated with some of the most interesting restaurants and young fashion designers. Creatives want to be around other creatives.

Which leads to the economic argument…

Our creative economy already employs about 170,000 people and generates more than $11 billion in economic activity. It’s large and robust. But we must center all of this in accessibility and affordability. Williamsburg used to be affordable. Artists can’t afford to live there anymore. Wicker Park and Bucktown in Chicago—artist central, now unaffordable. If we’re going to invest in this district, we have to be really intentional about housing and workspace, so creatives have a place in the future of this district.

I see all these new supper clubs and creative collectives popping up. What is the lesson there for San Diego in terms of the commercialization of cultural and creative groups?

I think the lesson is that nothing changes. What do people love? Long tables. Why? Because you’re with a lot of people—some you may have known your entire life, but most you don’t. And if it’s driven by a creative process, all the better. We know one of the best ways to do that is around food, but also music.

For the Art + Design District, part of why we’re leaning into the process is because, culturally, we’re bringing down the barriers between film, fashion, multimedia, tech, and architecture. It’s an experiential mashup in the best possible way.

And it’s not just about art and design, but community writ large. Creative expression is something we all desire. Whether it’s at a long table, at the opera, or in your studio, we gravitate toward creative expression as a way of building community and communicating with the people around us.

Is there a question I should have asked you but haven’t?

I hope you are writing about this in seven years when the district is fully mature. But this is just the beginning for all of this. I think that’s what’s most exciting to me. We don’t know what this is going to be like, but we know it’s going to be creatively centered, and that’s super exciting to me.

Sebastián Morúa is the Senior Vice President of Brand & Innovation for San Diego FC. He oversees Playmakers, the program through which the club has, over the past three years, engaged with over 80 working artists—not as marketing partners, but as co-creative directors.

Morúa didn’t build Playmakers as a community-outreach program bolted onto a Major League Soccer franchise. He built it as the identity of the franchise. When we sat down, he talked about the World Cup, San Diego’s creative workforce, his challenge to other sports franchises in the city, and the mural of heroes he hopes people will see one day when they close their eyes and picture San Diego FC.

Claire Johnson: Why does an MLS team invest in arts and culture?

Sebastián Morúa: I want to answer that in two parts. Philosophically first—because I think what you’re really asking is why should any sports team do this when most don’t.

Sport is a platform for transformation. It has proven that over and over. We saw it this summer with countries participating in the World Cup for the first time and what that did in their home countries—the sense of self-identification, pride, possibility. That is the power of sport.

When you take a sports team that’s fueled by that principle and understands what it could mean for other stakeholders in a community, you start to think about what you can accomplish in collaboration with them. One of those stakeholders, very early on, was the creative community. If we were going to build a team that represents this place and its people, we needed to go to the source. Artists are uniquely positioned to translate the essence and the soul of a community. When you zoom out and look at the multitude of artists in a place, you start to see the fabric of that local culture. That’s where the sense of pride and possibility gets unlocked.

But you’re also San Diego FC specifically. That matters.

Our mission is to create opportunities for talent to flourish and make San Diego shine. That means the club is a platform. When we started doing the early research for the brand, we brought artists into our focus groups. The response was immediate. There was a clear need. In 2024, we ran the first full year of what became Playmakers, working with more than 20 artists to help us tell the story of how San Diego FC could weave 18 distinct communities together.

We’re in the business of developing communities through sport. We’re not in the business of fútbol to entertain communities. That is an outcome—but not the purpose.

When you started, were you thinking about the profitability of this type of program?

No. I wasn’t thinking about where this was going or how much it would cost. It instinctively felt aligned with our organizational purpose, and we made a decision to go for it. Now it’s become what it’s become.

What does Playmakers look like in 10 or 20 years?

If a fan closed their eyes 20 years from now and tried to paint a mural of the heroes that make up the club, they would see a big percentage of Playmakers artists on that mural. Ask any fan about the team they’ve supported for decades, and they’ll tell you about players, maybe a coach, maybe an owner. We’re expanding that. In our mural, there’ll be artists, entrepreneurs, community leaders, youth coaches. The community will be present.

Three to five years from now, Playmakers is an established community of creatives who have co-directed the identity of the club and the evolving identity of San Diego. If we keep the pace we’ve kept, we should have collaborated with 150 to 200 artists whose stories we’ve told and whose next steps we’ve helped support.

What would you tell another organization considering this kind of investment?

There’s a huge benefit for us as a club and as a brand. This is symbiotic. The artists have a need, we can support that need, and in return the community cares more about our club because of the investment we’re doing in the community. That’s what I would tell another organization.

What excites you most about how San Diego is changing?

San Diego is waking up to how much it has to offer the global conversation around culture. There’s a purity to life here—partly because of the weather, which allows us to spend so much time outside, in nature—and that exists alongside this incredible richness in food, music, art, and now sports.

I have a sense that San Diego is ready to unlock its full potential. You see it in the artists and creatives here. They’re ready. There’s very little hesitation. It’s more like: “Hell yeah, of course I want to do this. I know I’m talented. I’ve been waiting for something like this.”

That energy, combined with the unique lifestyle and character of this place, creates a really exciting sense of what San Diego can become in the years ahead.

Is there a question I should have asked you that I haven’t?

I would ask: What would you say to the other big players in San Diego who are—or could be—shaping the cultural fabric of our community? Do they understand the symbiotic benefit? Are they supporting it?

Because Playmakers, in the end, is a cultural compass. It’s making sure that San Diego still feels—and will always feel—represented in the creative process of building San Diego FC and what that means for San Diego.

The pitch is a canvas. Athletes are painting collectively during every game. There is a story in every game. That’s the link between sport and art. At the core, it’s the same creative process.