Dr. Mihir Parikh Installed as President of SDCMS for 2016–17
Long-time San Diego County Medical Society member, Dr. Mihir Parikh, was installed as SDCMS's 131st president on Saturday, June 4, at the sixth-annual White Coat Gala, an event hosted by SDCMS and Champions for Health (formerly the SDCMS Foundation) to raise funds for Project Access San Diego, the county’s only comprehensive network of coordinated, donated healthcare services for medically underserved patients.
Dr. Parikh is a board-certified ophthalmologist and has performed more than 12,000 LASIK procedures, including many for San Diego Chargers players. After Dr. Parikh graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UC Irvine, he received his medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. Parikh is a chief surgeon of NVISION Eye Centers, a provider of custom vision correction procedures, and, in his spare time, teaches principles of ophthalmology and refractive surgery to fellow doctors and surgeons.
Among the more than 200 attendees at Dr. Parikh’s presidential installation were Congressman Scott Peters, Calif. Senator Marty Block, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, and keynote speakers Dustin Corcoran, CEO of the California Medical Association, and James Floros, CEO of the San Diego Food Bank.
During his acceptance speech, Dr. Parikh spoke, on the one hand, of the rapid convergence of technology and medicine, the regenerative power of stem cells, the volume and availability of electronic information (“All of my patients now get at least two opinions: mine and Dr. Google’s, and not necessarily in that order.”), and, on the other, of the need to put healthcare spending on a diet, with the United States spending more on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than any other country in the world.
When not performing LASIK and other procedures here in San Diego, Dr. Parikh enjoys going on medical missions around the globe to help those truly in need. Later this month, Dr. Tom Tooma, NVISION’s founding surgeon, Dr. Parikh and his wife, Dr. Keerti Gurushanthaiah, two other NVISION surgeons, and all of their families will be traveling to Fiji on a medical mission for cataract surgeries.
One of Dr. Parikh’s goals for his year as SDCMS president will be to pass this November’s ballot initiative to increase the tax on tobacco in order to decrease tobacco consumption and deter doctors’ youngest patients from ever becoming addicted to nicotine and smoking. In addition, Dr. Parikh looks forward to partnering with others in the community who are also helping patients. “When we work side by side with our partners, the San Diego Food Bank, for example, all of our organizations will grow and become stronger, and our patients will ultimately benefit the most.”
Dr. Parikh and Dr. Gurushanthaiah, who have been married for 21 years, are the proud parents of two wonderful, superstar kids, Nathan and Karina.
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The San Diego County Medical Society (SDCMS), the professional association for physicians in San Diego County, founded in 1870, currently counts approximately 5,455 physicians and medical students within the county as members. SDCMS — “Physicians United for Healthy San Diego” — fights for access to quality healthcare for all San Diegans.