About Us :: Our Contributors

Medical Editor

Prerna Mona Khanna, M.D., M.P.H.

"Dr. Mona" is a triple board-certified medical doctor and an Emmy award-winning medical journalist. Her college degree is from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and she is the only medical doctor inducted into the Medill Hall of Achievement, as well as the only career journalist inducted into the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society.

Dr. Mona is a popular event speaker and media trainer and has appeared as a medical expert on CBS, Good Morning America, The Early Show and CNN. She is a highly-regarded author for numerous trade and lay publications.

After graduating from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Dr. Mona completed three specialized residencies: Internal Medicine and Occupational Medicine, both in San Francisco; and Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

In addition to her formal schooling, Dr. Mona has trained at renowned medical organizations including the National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Harvard Medical School, Betty Ford Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and Clinica del Lavoro in Milan, Italy. She studied terrorism medicine at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel, and emergency response in L'viv, Ukraine. She spent four months studying the health care system in Switzerland as a Rotary Professional Scholar, and has also studied infectious disease in Hong Kong, China and Vietnam, and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in Kyoto, Japan.

For her leadership in empowering people across the globe through television, radio, magazine, newspaper and online heath reports, and her work as an emergency medical aid volunteer, Dr. Mona has received almost 50 awards in the past 5 years, including the 2008 Alumni Humanitarian Award from the University of Illinois, the 2007 Award of Valor from the National Association of Minority Media Executives, the 2006 Leadership Award from the American Medical Association Foundation, and the 2005 In-Depth Medical Reporting Award from the Texas Medical Association.

"I've taken care of people all over the world, and I've come to believe the most important part of any visit to the doctor is health education," said Dr. Mona, who gave up lucrative positions in medical management to pursue her passion.

Dr. Mona also teamed up with Dr. Phil McGraw, CBS Entertainment Reporter Sandie Newton and CBS Photographer Billy Sexton on a series about matchmaking that received a 2008 Honorable Mention from the Los Angeles Press Club, 2006 Telly Award, 2006 Katie Award, and a 2006 Emmy Award nomination.

Dr. Mona hosted and co-produced "Diagnosis: Cancer," and "Cheap Medicine: Mexico's Medications," 30-minute CBS Special Reports. The features earned her the 2006 Texas Medical Association Award for In-Depth Television Reporting, 2006 National Headliner Award, 2006 Emmy nomination, finalist nomination in the 2006 International Health and Medical Media Awards and 2004 Davey and Telly awards.

Dr. Mona has volunteered with national and international humanitarian agencies for 10 years providing and promoting voluntary emergency medical services. In August 2006, she moderated a panel to educate and recruit volunteers and donors for Doctors Without Borders. In September and October 2005, as a member of the Disaster Medical Assistance Team, she offloaded patients from helicopters and treated Hurricane Katrina and Rita evacuees. While doing so, she filed daily reports for CBS 11 News from the frontlines of care.

In January 2005, when Dr. Mona was on assignment in Sri Lanka covering the tsunami aftermath, she lead a team of paramedics to provide medical care to hundreds of tsunami survivors and subsequently received the Texas Association of Broadcasters Award for Outstanding Valor and Service in Pursuit of Broadcast News Coverage. Devastated by the lack of availability of post-tsunami medical care, Dr. Mona returned to Asia, this time to Banda Aceh, Indonesia, in March 2005, for 5 weeks to provide care to tsunami survivors. While there, she co-produced a profile of the International Medical Corps in a 3-part series that aired on CBS 11 News in May of 2005. Dr. Mona's broadcast and online reports on the tsunami aftermath garnered honors from the Association of Women Journalists, the Asian-American Journalists Association, the South Asian Journalists Association and the Press Club of Dallas.

A former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Mona received her Emmy award in 2004 for her creative feature "The Health Benefits of Chocolate." Other organizations that have honored her include the Radio Television News Directors Foundation, United Cerebral Palsy, California Healthcare Foundation, Illinois State Society of Washington, D.C., and the International Longevity Institute. She was nominated in both 2005 and 2006 for "Woman Journalist of the Year" by the Association of Women Journalists.

Staffing the medical clinics at Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks, the Fort Worth Alliance Air Show, the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, and Kosovo refugee headquarters were some of Dr. Mona's other disaster deployments. Her medical relief efforts during the extraordinary circumstances surrounding Hurricane Katrina and Ground Zero earned her and her disaster colleagues commendations from Congress, Texas and California governors, City of Dallas, San Bernardino County, Riverside County and the Veterans Administration. She is a Lieutenant Colonel with the Texas Medical Rangers, and a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security.

Dr. Mona is a four-time winner of the American Medical Association's Physician Recognition Award, in 1997, 2001, 2004 and 2007. She has been recognized by her medical peers at the Texas Medical Association, India Medical Association, and American Medical Association. She captured the journalism awards given in 2007 by the Greater Dallas Asian-American Chamber of Commerce and in 2006 by the Greater Dallas Indo-American Chamber of Commerce. She has held joint appointments as an associate clinical professor at both the University of North Texas School of Medicine and School of Public Health since 2004, and was invited to become an East-West Center Health Journalism Fellow in 2006 and a U.S.-Japan Leadership Program Delegate in 2007. Also in 2007, Kappa Delta Sorority awarded Dr. Mona its Order of the Pearl Service Award.

Dr. Mona began her broadcasting career at WREX-TV in Rockford, Il, while she was in medical school. She made the leap to full-time medical broadcasting when she took a 90-percent pay cut from medical practice to accept her first full-time television job in 2002. Prior to that, she worked as Medical Director for both San Bernardino and Riverside counties, treating patients and managing services for 18,000 and 100,000 patients, respectively.

Wellness Expert

Ann Kulze, M.D.

Ann Kulze M.D. (popularly known as "Dr. Ann") is a nationally recognized expert and motivational speaker in the areas of nutrition and healthy living. With her unique background and formal training in both nutrition and medicine, along with her extensive "hands on" experience as a wife, mother of 4 and trusted family physician, Dr. Ann has distinguished herself as a one-of-kind "real world" wellness expert.

Dr. Ann is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Dr. Ann's 10-Step Diet: A Simple Plan for Permanent Weight Loss and Lifelong Vitality. She has been featured in a number of national media outlets including Oprah and Friends Radio, Time Magazine, WebMD, Cosmopolitan, and Woman's World. To learn more about Dr. Ann please visit her website at www.DrAnnwellness.com.

African-American Health

Thaddeus J. Bell, M.D.

Dr. Thaddeus J. Bell is a Family Practice Physician in Charleston, South Carolina. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Medicine and the founder of "Closing the Gap in Health Care," a website that provides health information for African Americans, which was the recipient of the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Service Award for outstanding contributions in health. The web site's mission is to decrease health disparities by providing information to underserved populations. Currently, health tips are aired in South Carolina's Tri-county area, the Columbia area, and other parts of the Lowcountry. Dr. Bell is also the co-founder of the award-winning Bell/Schula Track and Field Fitness Festival for children and youth to promote fitness for life.

Dr. Bell is also an Associate Dean for Diversity in the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina and a Clinical Associate Professor of Family Medicine at MUSC. In 1995, Dr. Bell was named "Physician of the Year" by the South Carolina Academy of Family Physicians. In April, 2007, a scholarship was started in his name for African-American students at the Medical University of South Carolina at the Coastal Community Foundation of Charleston by Select Health Insurance Inc. Dr. Bell is a well-respected lecturer to physicians and patients alike on issues of health disparities. He has expertise in fitness and health and often lectures on the subject.

Dr. Bell is a former world-class runner in Master Track and Field, in which he was 100-meter sprint World Champion in 1987 and 1989 in the ages 40-44 and 45-49, respectively. He has also been two-time World Medical Games champion in the 100m and 400m dashes. He has been on two Masters world champion sprint relay teams in 1996, and 2001. The Charleston News and Courier selected him as one of South Carolina's best athletes of the century in track and field.

Psychiatry, Radiology and Neuroscience

Mark S. George, M.D.

As an undergraduate student in philosophy at Davidson College in Davidson, NC, Dr. George first began studying the relationship between mind and brain, or brain/behavior relationships. He has continued this interest throughout his career. He received his medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston in 1985, where he continued with dual residencies in both neurology and psychiatry. He is board certified in both areas. Following his residency training he worked for one year (1990-91) as a Visiting Research Fellow in the Raymond Way Neuropsychiatry Research Group at the Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London, England. During his fellowship he wrote one of the first textbooks in the new area of brain activation and imaging.

He then moved to Washington, DC, working with Dr. Robert Post in the Biological Psychiatry Branch of the Intramural National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). During his 4 years at NIMH he was one of the first to use functional imaging (particularly oxygen PET) and discovered that specific brain regions change activity during normal emotions. He then started using imaging to understand brain changes that occur in depression and mania, a quest that he and many others are still pursuing. This imaging work directly led to his pioneering use of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a probe of neuronal circuits regulating mood, and to clinical trials using TMS as an antidepressant. He discovered that daily prefrontal rTMS could treat depression. In 1995 he moved back to Charleston and built the functional neuroimaging division and brain stimulation laboratories. This imaging group has grown into the MUSC Center for Advanced Imaging Research, which is now part of the SC Brain Imaging Center of Excellence. He continues to use imaging (particularly functional MRI) and non-invasive stimulation (TMS, or VNS), either separately or more recently in combination, to understand the brain regions involved in regulating emotion in health and disease. In June 1998 at MUSC, he also pioneered another new treatment for resistant depression, vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). This was recently FDA approved. He and his group have used MRI imaging to understand VNS brain effects.

He is a world expert in brain stimulation, and is the editor-in-chief of a new journal called, Brain Stimulation. He is on several editorial review boards, has published over 300 scientific articles or book chapters, has 8 patents, and has written or edited 6 books.