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 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.
Aaron Highsmith, PA-C
Aaron Highsmith is a great addition to our medical staff. Aaron leveraged his prior 11,000 thousand hours of clinical experience to attend and graduate from Stanford University Medical School.
From 1999-2006 he worked as respiratory care practitioner. During that time he worked multiple facets of healthcare, from attending high risk births and C-sections, to working at a world renowned burn center. His care responsibilities ranged from children to geriatrics, and even critical care transports.
He also diagnoses and treats patients at three of the largest hospital Emergency Rooms in the region. We like his wealth of knowledge and experience.
We also have a sense of humor -- Aaron and his giant 4-wheel drive truck get first choice on our cases on top of the mountains around here.
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.
Gina Faraci, MA & operations
Gina is both a licensed Medical Assistant, a 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.
As our newest member of the team 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. Jackie listens well and that's one of the key staff characteristics here. 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.
JoJo, our admin office dog
He knows which staff member is returning before their car is even parked outside.
Some thow a ball for JoJo, and some give him a scratch.
You can tell who the dog is expecting by how he's acting or standing in the hallway. JoJo is our furry doorbell.
Lots of energy.
Not much production.
Emeritus team members
Nicole 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.
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 reverse 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.