SACRAMENTO – Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) today announced he will seek to represent the people of the 9th Assembly District in 2012, continuing his work empowering communities to create jobs and strengthen neighborhoods.

“I have dedicated my life to solving problems and helping everyone in the community I serve,” Dr. Pan said. “I will continue to bring my real-world experience as a physician, educator, and small business owner to the state legislature so we can make our neighborhoods safe, healthy, and prosperous.”

“Dr. Pan’s experience in healthcare has been a tremendous resource in helping his colleagues in the Assembly consider some of the important changes to the healthcare system in California,” said Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles). “Crafting the right healthcare policies for a state as large and complex as California is a major challenge, and the Assembly has benefited greatly from Dr. Pan’s insights and experience.”

As a UC Davis educator and pediatrician in the region for over 13 years, Dr. Pan has worked to empower communities to improve health outcomes. He created a grassroots program to partner communities with physicians to improve health, secured health, dental, and vision coverage for 65,000 children in the region, and established a clinic in Oak Park to serve children. Dr. Pan received the 2010 Physician Humanitarian Award from the Medical Board of California for his community work.

“I have watched Dr. Pan work tirelessly to help build a healthier Sacramento for over a decade. Now, I am proud to work with Assemblymember Pan in the Legislature,” said Senate pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). “This year we worked to bring in $90 million in federal funds to firefighters, and I am excited about the work we can do in the years to come.”

During his first year in the Assembly, Dr. Pan worked with families and communities to author bills with widespread local support that were signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown.

The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District worked closely with Dr. Pan on AB 678, which is now bringing $90 million in federal funding for California firefighters. As a physician, Dr. Pan understood the critical role of medical services delivered by firefighters and authored AB 678 to help fire departments pay for ambulance services they provide for Medi-Cal patients.

Parent Dale Proctor joined the California Alliance of Retired Americans and the Consumer Federation of California to support Dr. Pan’s AB 688 because it will take off of store shelves expired baby food, which made his son Kai extremely sick. AB 688 will also remove expired over-the-counter medications, ensuring consumers purchase medications that are still effective, such as aspirin to prevent serious symptoms related to strokes.

Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease (SCID), also known as Bubble Boy disease, is a lethal genetic disease where a child cannot fight infections. However, if tested at birth, these children can be cured. Dr. Pan partnered with the March of Dimes to author AB395 to add SCID to California’s newborn screening program, saving lives and saving the state millions in health care costs.

California’s prosperity depends on the health of our individual communities and neighborhoods, which need strong local economies, robust schools, clean air and water, and access to quality health care. By bringing people together, Dr. Pan helps us build a healthier Sacramento.

Assemblyman Richard Pan, a Democrat who represents Granite Bay, received bi-partisan support from the Assembly on Monday for his measure that extends the sunset date on the California Children’s Services Program, which provides care for children with serious and chronic health conditions.

“Parents do everything in their power when their children live with the chronic illnesses and disabilities; we need to be there to help with the care parents simply cannot provide,” said Pan, a Sacramento pediatrician, in a press release.

“The CCS network that has provided this specialized care has kept kids alive in California and AB 301 will make sure it keeps doing just that.”

Robert Pewitt, who adopted three children who are served by CCS, testified at the Capitol in support of Assembly Bill 301.

“All are afflicted with seizure disorders, one is tracheotomy dependent, two are feed by tube and another may soon need to be fed by tube,” Pewitt said. “Staffers have seen and visited with our children. As a result, we can call our CCS office and speak to a person who knows the kids by their name rather than an ID number. I couldn’t imagine trying to work with a larger agency when we have so many complicated issues.”

Through an organized delivery system, CCS provides quality standards for providers that ensure critically sick children are referred to the appropriate pediatric-trained specialists and requires physicians, hospitals and other providers meet strict quality and volume standards in order to participate in the program, according to a spokesperson for Pan.

During the 1990s, as California began enrolling families into managed care, policymakers became concerned that children transferred out of CCS would fail to receive the same quality of care as they had through CCS. Therefore in 1994, a “carve-out” for CCS eligible conditions for children who are enrolled in Medi-Cal managed care was established in law.

AB 301 extends the sunset date to Jan. 1, 2018.

The bill passed on a 75-0 vote, including support from Assemblyman Dan Logue, a Republican who represents Colfax and North Auburn.

The bill is sponsored by the Children’s Specialty Care Coalition and was supported by several health care groups including California Medical Association and the California Children’s Hospital Association. It faces no opposition.

The bill now moves on to the Senate.

See the story on Placer County Online.

Assemblyman Richard Pan is spearheading an effort to increase prison sentences for certain child abusers.

Pan, a pediatrician who has treated abused children, announced legislation this morning that would classify many child abuse crimes related to physical abuse and human trafficking as serious and violent felonies. The designation means increased prison time for abusers.

“These are serious crimes and it’s important that people understand that abusing a child – someone who, in most cases, is smaller than they are and vulnerable – is something we’re not going to tolerate in our society,” said Pan, D-Natomas, in a phone interview.

The bill, which was introduced in February, is awaiting a hearing in the committee on public safety on April 26.

Pan held a news conference on the legislation this morning in St. Rose of Lima Park, just steps away from The Lisa Project, a multimedia child abuse prevention exhibit that is free and open to the public through the end of the month. April is Child Abuse Prevention Month.

The Lisa Project is intended to expose people to the realities of child abuse and empower them to prevent it. Click here here to read a recent Sacramento Bee column on The Lisa Project.

Pan has been through the exhibit, set up in modular classrooms so that each room is a depiction of a different form of child abuse. He described The Lisa Project as “extremely moving.”

“For someone who has worked with abused children, it brings back some bad memories too,” he said.

Also disheartening, Pan said, is knowing that “some of them are worse than those they’re presenting in the project.”

Pan is hopeful that the amendment to the penal code will pass, despite critics who might argue that increased sentences add to prison overcrowding issues.

But the child abuse has substantial costs too – and not just in terms of public funding.

“Even if the child were able to be taken away from the abuser, child abuse has lifelong consequences,” Pan said. “It’s illustrated by The Lisa Project and in many studies that you end up with cycle of abuse and we need to prevent that. Certainly one piece of that is prevention, but we need abusers to know that there are consequences for them as well.”

BY ASIANWEEK STAFF

Dr. Richard Pan, a 44-year-old Democrat is currently in a tightly contested race for the 5th Assembly District against Republican opponent, Andy Pugno. The district spans parts of Sacramento and Placer counties and has sent a Republican to the Assembly for the last 28 years, but recent shifts in voter registration and the districts’ support for President Obama in 2008 signal that changes are afoot.

Pan, a physician and educator at the UC Davis Children’s Hospital says his background as a practicing physician makes him an ideal candidate since he will bring real-world health care experience as California is working to implement recently passed federal health care reforms. If elected, he would be the only practicing physician to be serving in the state legislature.

Pan believes the contrast in backgrounds between him and his opponent makes him the right choice for this moderate district.

He compares his record as a physician working with families and an accomplished community leader with Pugno’s career as a political lawyer who makes his living lobbying for divisive issues and draws particular attention to Pugno’s opposition to a woman’s right to choose, even in cases of rape or incest.

Dr. Pan also believes his candidacy as an Asian-American holds particular significance. “I’m running in a district that’s 80 percent White, so a victory would send a signal that Asian-American candidates can be viable for seats without large Asian Pacific Islander populations,” Pan said. “ Asian-Americans are not monolithic and the Asian-American community as a whole needs to be included in important conversations.”

Pan is campaigning to represent the 5th District in the State Assembly because he’s seen firsthand that Californians are hurting from decisions being made under the dome of the State Capitol, and is frustrated by politicians who seem more interested in partisan posturing than in helping families through the worst economic crisis in 80 years.

As a physician who emphasizes preventing disease and partnering with people in the community, Pan has a long history of working to bring divergent groups and individuals together for a common cause and is hoping to bring that same non-partisan approach to the state legislature.

“When a sick child enters the hospital, doctors and nurses don’t ask whether her parents are Democrats or Republicans; we work together to treat the disease,” Pan said. “Identify the problems and work together on the solutions – it’s the same approach we need to get our state and our economy back to health.”

Born and raised on the east coast, Dr. Pan is the son of Taiwanese immigrants. “My grandfather was a physician so I was very interested in health issues and had an interest in science,” Pan said. “Since I was about eight I wanted to become a physician, and the opportunity to help people in a direct way appeals to me.”

A product of public schools, Dr. Pan earned his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University. He went on to get his Medical Doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh and his Master of Public Health from Harvard University.
Pan views training the next generation of doctors as important to his overall mission to improve the public’s health. As an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at University of California, Davis, Dr. Pan headed the university’s Pediatric Residency Program, where he developed a national award-winning program to promote healthy lifestyles by partnering with community groups.

He has helped found a number of innovative programs that emphasize collaboration including Communities and Physicians Together, a grassroots program placing pediatricians in disadvantaged communities; and Healthy Kids, Healthy Future, a non-profit that secured health, dental and vision coverage for over 65,000 children in Sacramento, Colusa, El Dorado, Placer and Yuba counties.

Pan received the California Medical Board Physician Humanitarian Award for his work and programs that emphasized taking health care beyond the doctor’s office by collaborating with neighborhood and community leaders and organizations and emphasizing prevention as well as treatment.

His desire to bring change on a larger scale drives his decision to run for state assembly, but his desire to represent the Sacramento-area communities in the state legislature was also inspired by seeing first-hand the devastation brought on by budget cuts in recent years and the widespread sense that officials seemed disconnected from the communities they were elected to represent. Pan said the programs cut in recent years have taken an especially hard toll upon vulnerable citizens; children, people with disabilities and seniors.

“I remember when the governor proposed eliminating Healthy Families, people said we need someone who understands what’s happening,” Pan said. “I thought, ‘If I’m not willing to throw my hat in the ring, then how can I to complain about the poor decisions being made by our state?’”

His campaign also comes at a time when, after years of growth, the API representation in the legislature is set to drop.

“Given that APIs are still underrepresented in Sacramento, Richard’s election would be a victory for the Asian American community statewide,” said State Controller John Chiang. “Most importantly, Richard’s remarkable skills and experience in bringing people together to solve problems is sorely needed in Sacramento right now.

See the story on AsianWeek.

Dr. Richard Pan, a UC Davis medical school professor, has received a statewide humanitarian award from the Medical Board of California.

The board awarded Pan the 2010 Physician Humanitarian Award for his efforts to improve health care access, especially for children.

The board is the state regulatory agency responsible for licensing and regulating doctors.

Pan is an associate clinical professor of pediatrics. He’s also in the race for the state Assembly’s District 5 seat, which covers parts of Sacramento and Placer Counties.

At UC Davis, Pan established a residency training program called Communities and Physicians Together, which places physicians in disadvantaged communities, so they can work with advocacy groups to promote healthy lifestyles.

See the article on The Sacramento Bee’s web site.