Ted O'Connell, M.D.
Dr. Ted O'Connell is a family physician, educator, author, innovator, and speaker.
Dr. O’Connell is the Director of Medical Education for Kaiser Permanente Northern California. He provides leadership and oversees for Kaiser Permanente Northern California’s 21 residency training programs and 15 fellowship programs which include 450 sponsored residents and fellows as well as 1100 visiting residents from organizations such as Stanford, UC San Francisco, and UC Davis. Dr. O’Connell also oversees medical student rotations for 800 medical students who rotate with Kaiser Permanente every year as well as pathway programs into medicine. Dr. O’Connell also provides direction for Kaiser Permanente Northern California’s continuing medical education programs which produce over 5000 programs annually for its 10,000 physicians.
Prior to his current role, Dr. O’Connell was Chief of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Kaiser Permanente Vallejo and the Founding Director of the Family Medicine residency program at Kaiser Permanente Napa-Solano. He also serves as an an associate clinical professor at the UC San Francisco School of Medicine and and assistant clinical professor at the UC Davis and Drexel University Schools of Medicine.
Dr. O'Connell also founded the Kaiser Permanente Napa-Solano Community Medicine and Global Health Fellowship, the first fellowship in the United States to formally combine both community medicine and global health.
Prior to establishing the residency and fellowship programs at Kaiser Permanente Napa-Solano, Dr. O'Connell served as a faculty member, associate program director, and then residency program director at Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills. While at Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills, Dr. O'Connell established the Kaiser Permanente Community Medicine Fellowship Program, which has expanded to eight fellowship positions across six different medical centers. Dr. O'Connell also served on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group.
Dr. O'Connell received his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame with honors and his medical degree from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He completed his internship, residency, and chief residency at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. Dr. O'Connell has completed the Emerging Leaders Program through The Permanente Medical Group, the Leading Innovations in Health Care and Education course at Harvard University, and Disruptive Strategy at Harvard Business School.
Dr. O'Connell has written and edited over a dozen medical textbooks as well as numerous textbook chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles. Many of his textbooks are medical best-sellers (see Books). Dr. O'Connell currently serves as Editor-In-Chief for Elsevier's Clinical Key MedEd, a worldwide medical education platform.
Dr. O’Connell is also Co-Founder and Chief Content Officer of InsideTheBoards, which is focused on providing audio resources in the form of podcasts and apps for medical students.
For more than a decade, Dr. O'Connell has served as an Expert Reviewer and Medical Consultant for the Medical Board of California. In this role, Dr. O'Connell has reviewed dozens of cases to help ensure high quality medical care in the State of California.
Dr. O'Connell is the recipient of The President’s Volunteer Service Award from AmeriCorps and the Points of Light Foundation, The Cecil Cutting Award for Innovation and Leadership, and Physician of the Year by the Napa and Solano County Medical Society. See other Honors and Awards.