John McDonald, MD
Dr. John McDonald received his M.D. from the University of Iowa in 1964. He completed internship at the University of Oregon in 1965. He completed an Ob/Gyn residency at the University of Iowa in 1968. He completed his second residency in Anesthesiology at the University of Washington in 1970.
His first academic position was at LAC/USC from 1970-1977 as Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Obstetrics and Gynecology. He co-founded the first neonatal intensive care unit at LAC/USC and was also director of anesthesiology and Respiratory Therapy at Women’s Hospital.
His second academic position was the University of Colorado as Professor and Vice Chairman of Anesthesiology and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1977-1978.
His third academic appointment was at The Ohio State University as Professor and Chairman of Anesthesiology and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1978-1998. He was also appointed as faculty at the Ohio Super-Computer Center 1988.
His fourth academic appointment is at Los Angeles where he is Professor and Chairman of Anesthesiology and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology both at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Dr. McDonald was recruited by founder of the Ohio Supercomputer Center, Dr. Charlie Bender; who believed his presence as faculty would stimulate ideas from the medical viewpoint that would be fresh projects for research and development of new viewpoints of model formulation. This became reality within the next few years with the development of the model of “Virtual Reality Lumbar Epidural”. This provided Dr. McDonald and colleague Don Stredney’s development of an end product that later precipitated their receiving a Smithsonian Award at the 1966 annual Washington D.C. ceremony.
Recent research efforts have focused on development of a unique research group composed of a total of five M.D.s and Ph.D.s. Our work continues to be centered about the confocal scope with the academic focus on pain messaging systems of the rat pelvis bladder, uterus, and colon. Our group has published 4 peer review papers in the past five year period.
Our current focus is development of unraveling of the mystery of pain as it concerns the “intracellular mechanisms”. We believe some of the quandary of inconsistent relief of pelvic pain lies in this medium and we plan to continue our search for some means of understanding this enigmatic major pain problem.
Harbor/UCLA Medical Center, Department of Anesthesiology 1000 West Carson Street Torrance CA 90502