The California Academy of Family Physicians presents this prestigious award to the individual who exhibits the finest qualities of family physicians and who goes above and beyond in service to patients, colleagues and community. This year we proudly announce Korey Jorgensen, MD of Laguna Beach as the 2004 California Family Physician of the Year.

Throughout his career, Dr. Jorgensen has been actively involved in improving the quality of life for patients with HIV/AIDS. In 1992, as medical director of the Laguna Beach Community Clinic, Dr. Jorgensen founded the Early Intervention HIV Treatment Program. He also held the position of medical director at Ahimsa Care Center, a skilled nursing facility serving terminal HIV-infected people. Dr. Jorgensen has sat on many AIDS advisory committees, making recommendations to cities and counties as to what services should be funded, e.g., HIV testing, in-home care services, and what amount of money should be assigned to these funded services. He’s also written policy recommendations on issues ranging from staff prejudice regarding HIV-infected people to post-exposure prophylaxis for wounds.

Although he’s officially retired from private practice, Dr. Jorgensen continues to serve low income patients at the Laguna Beach Community Clinic, where he holds the title of Director Emeritus, specializing in family and HIV medicine.

In addition to his exemplary efforts in the HIV field, Dr. Jorgensen also has worked with a provider of dental services to develop and begin operation of a dental clinic that offers services to lower income adults and children. He has been instrumental in fundraising and securing grants for programs across Orange County, such as diabetes education and treatment and anonymous HIV testing and prevention, from a variety of government and private sources. During the 80s, he provided inpatient health assessment and medical management of chemical dependency withdrawal symptoms of people with mixed dependencies, mostly heroin and/or cocaine. Dr. Jorgensen is Board Certified in family medicine, addiction medicine and HIV medicine.

As recently as a month ago, Dr. Jorgensen spoke on “AIDS Awareness in Diverse Populations,” at the UC Irvine College of Medicine’s Diversity in Medicine: Addressing Disparities in Healthcare lecture series. Over the course of his career, Dr. Jorgensen has been a mentor to physicians-in-training through his longtime affiliation with the UCI College of Medicine and Department of Family Medicine.

Dr. Jorgensen has received several awards and has been profiled in local newspaper and magazine articles for his unyielding dedication and service to his community and to public health. His achievements in public health go beyond the traditional focus of treating the underserved. His life’s work has had a much broader focus - to meet the health care needs of his community on several levels, thus improving the lives of those in Orange County. For these reasons, CAFP is honored to award the 2004 California Family Physician of the Year award to Dr. Korey Jorgensen.