Faculty

Dr. Bertakis was born and raised in Northern California and received her B.S. degree from UC Davis and M.P.H. from U.C. Berkeley. She attended medical school and completed her family practice residency at the University of Utah. She joined our faculty in 1980 and founded the U.C. Davis Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care in 1994. She became Chair of the Department in 1995 and was elected Chair of the Council of Chairs in 2000. Dr. Bertakis' research focuses on the doctor-patient interaction and the effects of physician practice style on patient outcomes and health care delivery. She was the youngest recipient of the Curtis G. Hames Research Award in Family Medicine, which is a lifetime achievement award for contributions to family medicine research. She has sat on numerous editorial boards and is currently a member of the British Medical Journal U.S.A. Dr. Bertakis has also served on the National Board of Medical Examiners and Medical Board of California.

Undergraduate: Duke University
Medical School: Jefferson Medical College
Residency: Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
I really enjoy being a faculty member at UC Davis. I'm also proud to be Program Director. I strive to make our program a great educational experience. The collegial relationships I share with the residents are an important part of my professional life. My main interests include teaching care of chronic diseases and quality improvement initiatives. My wife Karyl is an OB/GYN. We have 3 beautiful children; a son named Andrew and twin girls, Deanne and Patricia. We especially enjoy weekend trips to San Francisco and Lake Tahoe. We are avid backyard gardeners and cooks.

Dr. Barton has her Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology from the California Graduate School of Family Psychology and a second Ph.D. in Special Education from the University of Southern California. She joined our faculty in 1990. Her professional interest center on family therapy as it interfaces with family practice.

Dr. Callahan received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Vermont in 1972. He undertook his first academic appointment that year as a research scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. He later joined the academic faculty in Psychology at West Virginia University in 1976, where he initiated joint training for psychologists in Obstetrics and Gynecology. He returned to the University of California in 1985 to join our Department. Dr. Callahan contributes to behavioral medicine training for our residents, medical students and psychology interns. His professional interests are in health psychology, with special foci in physician-patient interaction and health outcomes, HIV prevention (both primary and secondary), human sexuality and identification and treatment of substance abuse.

Dr. Eidson-Ton completed her medical school training at University of California, San Francisco. After completing a joint residency in Family Medicine and Obstetrics at UC Davis, she joined the UC Davis Family and Community Medicine faculty in 2002. Her current interests in medicine include Women's Health and Obstetrics. She also holds a joint appointment in the Department of OB/GYN as a provider in the Breast Health Center.

Dr. Fenton has been Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine since coming to UC Davis in 2005 from the University of Washington, where he was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. Dr. Fenton conducts research on the accuracy, utilization, and clinical impact of cancer screening. Current research focuses on the dissemination and clinical impact of mammography innovations. As an American Cancer Society Mentored Research Scholar, Dr. Fenton is also studying racial and ethnic differences in the uptake of colorectal cancer screening tests. Prior to postgraduate research training, Dr. Fenton was in rural clinical practice on the Navajo Indian Reservation at Crownpoint, NM. Dr. Fenton graduated from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and completed residency at San Francisco General Hospital.

Dr. Fong graduated from Wayne State of University, School of Medine.  He completed his family medicine residency at the King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles.  After completing a fellowship in Primary Care Outcomes Research, he joined the faculty in 2005.  He serves as the director for the UC Davis Network of Affiliated Family Medicine Residency Programs.  His areas of interest are obesity and nephrology.  He grew up in Sacramento and returned with his wife and three sons.   

Dr. Franks received his M.D. degree from the University of London, England, escaped with his American wife to Rochester, New York, where he completed residency training in 1979 and joined the faculty there. For the next 20 years he adopted many guises, including residency director, research director, medical director, and associate chair before seeing the light and moving to Sacramento in 2000. It's been great here. Apart from clinical work, and teaching, his focus is on research. His research interests are appropriately diverse for a family physician and include health services research with an emphasis on the role of primary care in the health care system, study design in primary care settings, and psychosocial factors affecting health, health care, and health care delivery.

Dr. Henderson has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Pacific Graduate School of Psychology. After completing her Internship and Postdoctoral Fellowship in Primary Care Psychology at UC Davis, she joined the Family & Community Medicine faculty where she is the Director of Behavioral Medicine. Her interests include addiction disorders, motivational interviewing, and health behavior change. She is also the Director of Psychology Training and provides education for psychology trainees in the primary care setting. Dr. Henderson completed her undergraduate degree at UC Santa Cruz and received an M.A. in Women’s History from Sarah Lawrence College where she also studied her life long passion, modern dance.

Dr. Jerant attended medical school at Saint Louis University and completed residency training at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington. After completing his commitment to the army, he joined the Department of Family & Community Medicine in 1998. Dr. Jerant is Director for the DF&CM Predoctoral Education Program, overseeing all medical student teaching and mentoring activities, and Co-Instructor of Record for the FAP430 Primary Care Clerkship, an 8-week outpatient primary care rotation required for all 3rd year medical students at UC Davis. Dr. Jerant is also a health services researcher, with a strong interest in developing and evaluating interventions to increase patients' participation in their own health care. His recent studies have focused on finding effective and resource-efficient methods of enhancing patient self-efficacy (confidence in ones ability to accomplish health-related tasks), a powerful mediator of multiple kinds of health behaviors. When not working, Dr. Jerant enjoys spending time with his wife Lisa and 2 year-old son Alex and listening to an ever-growing collection of vinyl records and CDs.

Dr. Lin received his M.D. degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed his Family Medicine residency followed by a one year Geriatrics fellowship at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, WA. His professional interests include geriatrics training, residency training, and pre-doctoral education. With regards to geriatric care, his interests include management of the elderly in long-term care facilities and elder abuse. He enjoys cooking, hiking, traveling, solving puzzles, and table tennis. If you come by the city of Davis, you may find him providing manual labor for his wife's garden or playing in the park with his daughter.

Sarah Marshall was born and raised in Stillwater, Minnesota. She received her undergraduate degree from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa in 1999 and her M.D. degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 2003. She completed a combined residency program in Family Medicine and Obstetrics at the University of California, Davis in 2007. Dr. Marshall joined the Department of Family and Community Medicine as a faculty member in August, 2007 with a joint appointment in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. When not providing care for her fantastic patients or working with residents and medical students in clinic or on labor and delivery, she spends time with her partner Matt, attempts backyard gardening, and is training for her first half marathon.

Dr. Melnikow received her M.D. degree from the University of California, San Francisco and completed her family practice residency training at the University of Massachusetts in 1987. She was on the faculty of Case Western Reserve University for four years before joining our Department in 1992. Dr. Melnikow has a strong professional interest in Women's health and her current research focuses on cancer screening and prevention issues in underserved populations, evaluation of women with abnormal pap smears, and cost effectiveness analyses.

Dr. Nelsen received her M.D. degree from Bowman Gray School of Medicine. She completed her Family Practice residency at David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base and then completed an Obstetrical fellowship at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. She joined the UC Davis Family Practice Department in 2003, where as Associate Residency Director she is responsible for the Residency curriculum. Her medical interests include Women's Health, Obstetrics and Obesity. She also holds a joint appointment in the Department of OB/GYN as a provider in the Breast Health Center.

Dr. Nesbitt graduated from the UC Davis School of Medicine in 1979 and did his family practice residency at the University of Washington affiliate in Spokane, WA. After practicing in California and Idaho for several years, he completed a faculty development fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Nesbitt joined our faculty in 1988. His research interests include rural health, OB access to care issues, and telemedicine.

Dr. Nuovo joined the Department of Family and Community Medicine in 1992 to become the director of the residency program. Dr. Nuovo attended medical school at the University of Vermont and completed his family practice residency at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington in 1983. After working in private practice and on staff at Madigan, Dr. Nuovo joined the faculty at the University of Washington in Seattle where he completed a faculty development fellowship. He was the residency director there for two years before joining our program in 1992. Dr. Nuovo's research interest is chronic disease management. He will be leading the Health System Initiative on chronic disease management. He is Assistant Dean for Graduate Medical Education for the UCD Health System, and Vice Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine.