Mark H. Katz, M.D.

Dr. Katz was born in New York City, and attended college at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, from which he graduated in 1971 with distinction in all subjects. He continued his professional education at State University of New York Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse, and received his MD degree from there, cum laude, in 1971. He completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals, Madison, and has been board certified in internal medicine since 1978. In addition, he began working in an emergency medicine practice setting and holds a certification from the American Board of Emergency Medicine as well.

Since moving to Los Angeles in 1985, he has been affiliated with the West Los Angeles Medical Center of Kaiser Permanente of Southern California. He became involved in the care of patients with HIV here, and in addition to a primary care HIV practice, he has held since 1992 the post of Regional HIV Physician Coordinator for the entire Southern California region, which encompasses more than 4,000 identified HIV-positive members presently.

He became increasingly active within the affected/affiliated HIV community of Southern California, and has been an educator as well as physician activist - through work with LA Shanti Foundation (formerly on the Board of Directors, has been volunteer there since 1985), Being Alive (conducted a monthly medical update from 1988 through 1997), Los Angeles Jewish AIDS Services (medical advisor), and other organizations. He currently sits on the Advisory Boards of AIDS Service Center of Pasadena, LA Shanti, and AIDS Research Alliance, and the active Board of Directors of the national CBO AIDS, Medicine, Miracles (secretary in 2001).

For his work he has been recognized through the years: He received Kaiser Permamente's Outstanding Physician Achievement Award (1990), Being Alive's first Spirit of Hope Award (1993), Los Angeles Jewish AIDS Services Community Service Award (1993), Congregation Kol Ami's Shomer Tzedek Award (1996), and the UCLA AIDS Institute Community Award (2001). But his greatest reward, he says, is "continually having the opportunity to be invloved in the care of people who face this challenge with such grace and determination."

In addition to frequent contributions to various local and national newsletters, Dr. Katz also enjoys writing creative non-fiction, some of it published, and much of it about the HIV epidemic. In the next year(s), he hopes to complete work on two Names Project quilts in memory of very dear friends who have died.