California Mayor Chosen as President-elect of American Society of Addiction Medicine
Donald J. Kurth, MD, has been named President-elect of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), the national professional organization representing physicians who treat addictive diseases. Dr. Kurth is a past president of the California Society of Addiction Medicine (CSAM) and is the first California physician to serve as ASAM president since Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic Founder David Smith, MD, held the post in 1995.
Dr. Kurth is Mayor of Rancho Cucamonga, a city of 175,000 approximately 40 miles east of Los Angeles. He also is Associate Professor with dual appointments in Preventive Medicine and Psychiatry at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California.
As ASAM president, Dr. Kurth plans to improve access to treatment and advocacy for more sensible public policy regarding addictive disease. “President Elect Barak Obama has made healthcare reform his administration’s major priority. But, to make realistic health care reform work, we must improve access to treatment to the 30 million Americans suffering from addictive disease,” Dr. Kurth said. “We will never contain health care costs until we successfully address addiction.”
Dr. Kurth is notable not only for his public service as a mayor and his deep commitment to addiction medicine, but also that he is a recovering heroin addict and alcoholic who lived on the streets of New York City nearly four decades ago. He attended Columbia University after he kicked heroin, and has been open about his addiction during his public service as a City Council member and Mayor of the fast-growing Southern California city. A Los Angeles Times article about him noted that addiction treatment patients can readily relate to Dr. Kurth because of his own experience in recovering from addiction and turning his life around. Dr. Kurth also is a cancer survivor.
“I’m extremely fortunate in life because of my recoveries from addiction and cancer. I’ve been given a new life several times over and so I now dedicate my life to helping others, both in addiction medicine and public service,” he said. “I consider the leadership role at ASAM as the greatest opportunity to advocate for changes in health care policy and practice that will make recovery from addiction the norm in our society. One day, hopefully soon, we will treat addiction the same way we treat other chronic diseases in our country.”
Dr. Kurth received his undergraduate education at Columbia University in the City of New York, graduating with honors and Phi Beta Kappa in 1975. He went on to study medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, and trained at Johns Hopkins and UCLA. He later received his MBA from Loma Linda University and his MPA (Masters in Public Administration) from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, an honor that has been awarded to fewer than 300 physicians world wide.
CSAM also will be represented on the ASAM Board of Directors by David Pating, MD, Chief, Addiction Medicine, Kaiser San Francisco Medical Center. Pating was elected Regional Director representing the State of California. Pating also serves as Commissioner on the California Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC). Dr. Pating has extensive clinical, administrative and policy experience in devising, planning, and implementing quality improvement efforts to impact the care of behavioral health conditions.
[December 20, 2008]
