NRI doctor, Mahal elected president of CMA, 35,000-member association

 

Sacramento, Nov. 11, 2006
Randeep Randhawa

NRI, Dr. Anmol S. Mahal was elected last week as president of the California Medical Association, one of the most influential medical organizations in the United States. He is the first person of Indian origin to head the 35,000-member association. He was inaugurated as CMA’s 139th president at the association’s annual House of Delegates in Sacramento.

He addressed to the 750 delegates and said:

• During his tenure he expects CMA to build membership and confront the challenge posed by rising health care costs. He told his colleagues that CMA would defeat regulations proposed by the Department of Managed Health Care that would allow health insurance companies to escape their responsibility to provide and pay for emergency care for all their customers.
• He also drew attention to the need to provide access to health care to all Californians and to train more physicians.
• “In California, we train half as many physicians per capita as does the rest of the U.S. We train a third as many physicians as do Pennsylvania and New York,” he said. “The only states that train fewer physicians per capita are the states that do not have a medical school. California needs to make a substantive investment in the health care infrastructure and that is a message I will carry.”

BIO:

• Dr. Mahal, 56, who is board certified in internal medicine and gastroenterology, is currently on staff at Washington Hospital in Fremont and previously served as chief of staff of Washington Hospital Healthcare System.
• Mahal came to the United States 33 years ago
• He received his medical degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.
• He completed his internship in internal medicine at the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark.
• He did a fellowship in gastroenterology at the Stanford University Medical Centre.
• Mahal serves on the Board of Trustees of the Sikh Foundation in Palo Alto, California.
• He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Indian Community Centre in Milpitas, California
• He is a founding member and past president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin of Northern California, and serves on its board.
• He serves on AMA’s Commission on Eliminating Health Disparities.
• He has been a CMA trustee for nine years and a member of CMA’s Executive Committee for four years.
• He serves as a Commissioner for the Emergency Medical Services Commission of the State of California. He was recently appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the Board of Trustees of the Health Professions Educational Foundation.
• Dr. Mahal is married to Surjit and she is a family physician. They have two children, a daughter, Subena, who is in a family practice residency and a son, Vikram, who is in college

Anmol Singh Mahal, M.D., was elected as president of the California Medical Association (CMA), one of the most influential medical organizations in the United States. He is the first person of Indian origin to head the 35,000-member association.