Dr. Claudia Borzutzky went to medical school at UCLA, interned in Family Medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and stayed there for her residency, in the same specialty. She is board-certified in Adolescent Medicine, Family Medicine, and Obesity Medicine. Put them all together, and they spell a specialty interest in Pediatric and Adolescent Obesity and Fitness.
Dr. Borzutzky’s profile page says:
She also has a particular interest in the delivery of culturally sensitive and competent medical care, and to caring for the medically underserved; she has a multi-cultural background and is a native Spanish speaker. She is a frequent lecturer… She was recently appointed to the Adolescent Medicine Sub-board for the American Board of Pediatrics.
Dr. Borzutzky has been practicing medicine in the greater Los Angeles area for 13 years. She teaches at the University of California’s Keck School of Medicine. At Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) she fills several roles, beginning with Attending Physician. She is also Director of the Adolescent Medicine Fellowship Program; and Medical Director of what is described as the “multi-disciplinary Empower Weight Management Clinic, a joint effort of the Divisions of Endocrinology and Adolescent Medicine.”
Then, there is the CHLA Diabetes and Obesity program, under the aegis of the Saban Research Institute. On their page, Dr. Borzutzky is named as Investigator in two instances. One is the EMPOWER Telehealth Study, which has to do with…
[…] a new care delivery model for CHLA EMPOWER patients using group telehealth visits… The research study will assess the feasibility of using telehealth in this population and test the efficacy compared to regular in person visits.
The other is POWER (Pediatric Obesity and Weight Evaluation Registry). Its description reads as follows:
We are participating in a multi-site pediatric weight evaluation registry along with more than 30 pediatric centers. The mission of POWER is to better understand and improve the health outcomes of children and adolescents with overweight and obesity who are participating in multi-component weight management programs.
Also, Dr. Borzutzky appears as one of three Investigators, along with Dr. Alaina Vidmar and Cassandra Fink, of “An Addiction Approach Mobile Health Weight Loss Intervention in Obese Adolescents.” This is of course Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go program. The literature says:
It has been theorized that overeating in some individuals may have addictive qualities, though few weight management interventions have tested therapeutic techniques founded in addiction medicine principles.
A lot of solutions have been tried, and have turned out to be not very useful and/or disproportionately expensive. But when we use mobile phones and other wireless devices to deliver medical care, we engage in mHealth. (So far, this is not quite as complicated as eHealth, which is said to have dozens of different definitions.)
mHealth is very economical. The report’s Conclusion says:
W8Loss2Go, an addiction medicine intervention, implemented as an mHealth platform, targeted for adolescents, appears to be useful in reducing zBMI and may be a cost-effective, timely and labor efficient method for weight management in adolescents.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Claudia Borzutzky, MD,” CHLA.org, undated
Source: “Diabetes and Obesity Program,” CHLA.org, undated
Photo credit: Visualhunt
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