Our Team

Dr Kondal, Quality Director

Dr. Kondal has the varied background we prize so highly. He graduated from Drexel University College of Medicine, Board certified in Family Practice (ABFM), and magna cum laude from Columbia University NY.

He also trains new doctors (a preceptor for residents) at the teaching hospital nearby. That’s the top-rated Family Medicine Residency Program founded here at VCMC in 1928, affiliated with UCLA School of Medicine.

Dr. Kondal serves as our Quality Director, provides second opinions and runs our quality improvement team that reviews charts and treatment. Patients love his input and second opinions because he listens well.

Udit previously provided health care, education and counseling through the New York City Health Department and non-profits for at-risk individuals in Harlem, Washington Heights, and Brooklyn. His Columbia concentration was in Women’s Studies and Gender Identities. Dr. Kondal’s 2006 residency was at Mount Sinai Hospital in NY and Jamaica Medical Center, Queens. He has seen it all and believes in treating the whole person.

As the second big-time surfer on our team, Udit likes California even more. His father just happened to be a nuclear physicist, and Udit does stand up comedy in his spare time. A native English speaker, Dr. Udit Kondal is also fluent in Spanish, Hindi, Punjabi, and is a beginning speaker in Mandarin Chinese

Corine Riedell PA-C, MPH

Corine Riedell PA-C, Masters of Public Health

Corine is Dr. Crowe's business partner and comes to us from UC Davis School of Medicine.

She honed her skills in CA clinics caring for people who never ever had a doctor -- seeing diseases and complications that others only read about in textbooks. That's in addition to 18,000 hours of clinical experience at Los Robles Regional Medical Center.

We like Corine's ability to mesh her clinical skills, years of matching test results to patient complaints and bedside skills that put patients at ease.

As a physician assistant (PA-C), Corine is able to evaluate, diagnose and treat patients, write prescriptions, suture lacerations, give injections, IVs, admit to any hospital and much more.

Corine is a published peer-reviewed clinician in her own right and a wealth of knowledge. She also holds a Masters in Public Health and is our longest, oldest, staff member. (Kidding about the "old")

Dr. Ellen Crowe, President

Dr. Crowe, an Emergency Room physician since 1990, is licensed in

both CA and IN, did her residency in family practice and brings significant family practice experience to you. In addition to being an ER doc, she is also Board Certified in Family Practice (ABFM)

When we last slowed down to count, Dr. Crowe has more than 45,000 hours in the Emergency Department with over 110,000 patients she personally treated.

A recent analysis of morbidity and mortality showed her complication rate was the lowest of the hospital medical staff. Patients typically say they appreciate her care, and consistently reward her with one of the lowest rates of patient complaints in the hospitals.

Elle graduated from the University of Notre Dame, and then earned her Doctor of Medicine degree, graduating from the Indiana University Medical School in the top 1/3 of her class.

She comes from over 20 years as an ER physician at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center, and for several years simultaneously served as the Medical Director of the Emergency Department. Dr. Crowe also served as the Medical Director of the regional Sexual Assault Clinic.

Another of our other personable brainiacs, Elle's father was a professor at Norte Dame. She continues to be in high demand as an ER physician

Jared Wong PA-C

Jared arrived in Ventura from high-intensity ERs in very different sized cities: the 1,000 bed Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in New York, Queens Hospital and Jamaica Hospital in Queens, NY, and Victorville Hospital in CA. All those hospitals treat a huge range of medical issues —including a substantial number of “knife and gun club” trauma cases.

When we hired Jared, he already had over 12,400 hours of hands-on clinical experience. Jared graduated from Touro College School of Health Sciences in New York with a BS in Health Sciences and a Masters degree in Physician Assistant Studies. He also holds a BS degree in Earth Sciences from UC Santa Cruz and graduated in the top 1/3 of his class in all three degree programs. Certified in ACLS, BLS, and PALS.

Jared’s volunteer work provides insight into his character: Los Angeles Search and Rescue team, a year long internship as an Investigator with the Public Defenders Office in Santa Cruz, the Hurricane Katrina Victim Relief Team in New Orleans, and six months investigating forgotten medications at the Ancient Medicine Man Research Project in La Paz, Bolivia. Clearly, he can think outside the box.

Beth Brown, PA-C

Beth’s background is Family Medicine with an emphasis on orthopedics and sports. She trained at Mount Sinai Hospital, Women’s Health Care, Austin Family Health, and graduated with her Masters from Chicago’s Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine.

Beth also carries a psychology degree from St. Louis University. Like all of our providers, Beth is able to diagnose, treat, develop an entire plan of care, prescribe all medications up through Schedule II narcotics, cut and stitch as needed, and admit you to the hospital.

Even though Beth’s winning smile and personality are part time here, she goes a long way to putting patients at ease even during difficult moments.

As proof we hire over-achievers, Beth is the second one of us who graduated college at age 20.

Nancy Menges, PA-C

We hire people with deep hands-on experience, and Nancy Menges fits that description. She graduated from UC Davis School of Medicine’s PA-C program in 1993. She also still works for a major clinic in the area that provides both primary care and Phase 3 clinical trials — so Nancy is research-focused and up to date.

She understands evidence-based medicine from her years in family health at Kaiser San Diego. Nancy also developed an expertise in the mental health and psychological issues that accompany many problems.

One other part of Nancy’s background really stands out. She has extensive experience treating patients in rural and Native American communities around Atwood Kansas and Humboldt California for the National Health Services Corps. Those are positions in which medical providers independently see and treat some of the worst versions of everything. Medical resources there were SO scarce that Nancy simultaneously served as the deputy district coroner.

We are happy Nancy’s independent brain found us. She lives here in Thousand Oaks with her daughter and enjoys camping as a way to recharge.

Jeanell Guenther, FNP

Our newest staff member, Jeanell has a long career as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP). She graduated Magna cum Laude twice — from both the Bachelors and Masters degree programs at CSUB. Her experience includes pediatrics, obstetrics, ER and Trauma, rheumatology, hematology, oncology, and all aspects of Family Medicine.

As an FNP, Jeanell can independently diagnose and treat any condition, suture, prescribe any medications, write orders, order labs and imaging and more. Family Nurse Practitioner of the Year in 2013, Jeanell developed an additional specialty in geriatric psych and addiction management because of the needs of the patients she has managed for years.

She has deep experience at more than five regional hospitals, a large kidney specialty clinic. Now in addition to working here, Jeanell teaches new nurses at a nearby nursing college.

Richard Barnett, RN

Richard Barnett is a Registered Nurse who likes complex high-risk cases, and also works on the telemetry floor of a major local hospital. Richard’s tremendous compassion grew caring for critical patients who needed a helicopter flight to a combat surgical hospital. (Yes that's him holding the baby)

He is a retired Independent Navy Corpsman, allowed to treat patients without a supervising physician, for more than 15 years aboard combat ships, with the Marines, and at isolated duty stations.

He supervised the training and preparation of 100 combat medics and then deployed during combat in Iraq. Back here in the US he supervised the creation of Camp Pendleton’s evening Family Practice Clinic, as part of the Naval Hospital.

His background includes ICU, ER, Pediatric and Medical-Surgical nursing assignments.

--(Reuters photo under fair use)

Kate Martin, RN

Kate Martin is our Registered Nurse with years of Pediatric, Plastic surgery and ER experience. While in Dallas she worked for a prominent plastic surgeon, and worked in the NICU and pediatrics floors at Dallas Children’s Medical Center. She also served in the pediatric Emergency Departments at both Medical City Dallas & Children’s

Kate moved to California a few years ago with her family as part of her husband’s international career, and dove right in a one of the largest local regional medical centers here.

As an Emergency Room RN Kate is unflappable. We suspect that “mother of two” and “Level 2 trauma center” are mutually supporting careers. She is organized and detail oriented, so regardless of the different in-house team names these Emergency Rooms place Kate on their Triage and CODE teams. That means she gets to identify the key path forward — and help fix situations that are suddenly going poorly. Kate Martin earned her Bachelors of Science in Nursing at Southern Nazarene University in Oklahoma in 2007.

Gina Faraci, MA & phlebotomist

Gina is both a licensed Medical Assistant, a nationally certified phlebotomist and our operations specialist (hey wait... that's three hats). She has a focus on details and smooth operations that we really appreciate. As a mobile practice our focus is "...anytime, anywhere."

That means that every medical staff member needs to be stocked and prepared to be dispatched to you at all hours. That's an incredibly demanding standard we set for ourselves -- medical kits are seldom here but always ready.

As an MA, Gina also prepares prescription refills for the MD’s and PA-Cs, draws blood for labs, performs ECGs, collects vital patient data, and coordinates provider orders for patients.

Gina has a similar detailed focus on coding receipts for patients to submit to their PPO insurance or for their taxes.

Jackie Gonzalez, MA

She brings valuable experience from several busy medical offices and a big urgent care.

We've discovered Jackie has a personality that really helps patients and callers relax.

We keep expanding her responsibilities as a licensed MA in the practice. Jackie keeps stepping up.

Everyone says she helps them feel cared about. Must be the mom in her.

Paul McQuillan, practice manager

Paul wears multiple hats. In addition to being Dr. Crowe's husband, COO and Treasurer, he manages sales, scheduling, hiring, training, mobile medical technology, operations processes, computer systems, billing, strategic planning, marketing, and advertising.

In his spare time Paul convinces medical vendors to re-write their code, or build smaller battery-powered equipment to support the mobile operations at House Call Doctor Thousand Oaks. That's one reason we have the world's smallest FDA certified ECG and Ultrasound machines here for improved patient care at 3 AM.

In his "other spare time", Paul volunteers as an Admissions Partner for the United States Coast Guard Academy (a son graduated there). So.... if you have a brilliant student looking for a 100% scholarship in engineering, naval architecture, management, marine and environmental science or government, just call and ask any questions you may have.

Dr. Roland Jacobs, psychiatrist

Dr. Jacobs is an adult and geriatric psychiatrist who consults and treats our patients when needed. He started as a Brooklyn native, raised in New Jersey, and received his medical degree from the Robert Wood Johnson - Rutger’s Medical School. Roland completed his residency at UCLA and served as an Assistant Professor and Associate Research Psychiatrist at UCLA. He developed and runs inpatient and outpatient programs in geriatrics, adult and adolescent psychiatry in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.

Roland is a passionate skier and divides his time between Taos NM and here in Southern California. His prior education includes a BA in Zoology, and a post-doctoral Scholar in Neuroscience. Locally he spends significant time helping individual psychiatric patients and has also run psychiatric programs at five regional hospitals. Even part time, we like the skills he brings to our home-bound and very private patients.

What is a PA-C?

It's the same intense World War II program used to train doctors for the battlefield. This Masters degree program requires thousands of hours of hands on clinical experience BEFORE someone can even apply.

The program emphasizes hands on diagnostics and treatment, so you see a PA-C often in the ER and Family Practice.

The PA-C education happens in a different order. Traditional medical schools are a masters degree followed by three years of hands on clinical residency. The PA programs changes that order with 3,000+ hours of clinical experience first, then a masters degree, followed by a series of clinical rotations.

Physician Assistant programs have spread to every major medical school in the USA. During Vietnam, the program re-started at Duke University when four highly experienced Navy Corpsman returned from the battlefield.

Emeritus team members

Nicole Pablo is off to her Masters PA-C program. In a few years your medical office may get a chance to hire this woman, If you do, make it a good offer.

She worked here as an MA, and is a UCLA graduate with a Bachelors of Science in Psychobiology. Her prior experience includes over a year as an MA for a large endocrinologist office, and more, plus a six month language immersion program working at rural medical clinics in Guatemala.

If she decides to return to the West Coast we may make an offer first.