Brian Koffman, MDCM
Medical Director, CLL Society Inc.
Partner, St. Jude Heritage Medical Group
Diamond Bar, CA
Clinical Professor (Retired) Department of Family Medicine
Keck School of Medicine, USC Family Practice
Los Angeles, CA
Dr. Brian Koffman earned his medical degree from McGill University, completed his Family Practice residency at the University of Western Ontario, and his Psychiatry Fellowship at McMaster. Dr. Koffman taught at the University of Waterloo and is a retired Professor at the Keck School of Medicine, USC where he completed his Master of Science in Medical Education. His practice for the last 37 years has been with St. Jude Heritage Medical Group, Diamond Bar, California.
As the former Medical Director of Primary Care Network (PCN), he helped develop and provide quality accredited CME and continues to teach both patients and doctors on various medical topics around the world. He is proud to continue his involvement as faculty in ongoing PCN accredited CME programs.
He has dedicated himself to teaching and helping the chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) community since his own CLL diagnosis in 2005. Dr. Koffman believes that his dual status as a physician and patient provides a unique experience and understanding which allows him to provide clear explanations of complex issues and to advocate for his fellow patients and inform his fellow healthcare providers.
As a doctor turned patient, his popular blog (http://bkoffman.blogspot.com) that shares and explains his CLL journey and the wide scope of his efforts in patient advocacy and education that has benefited countless patients with well over a million page views.
He founded and is the volunteer Medical Director of the highly respected nonprofit CLL Society (CLLS) (http://cllsociety.org) dedicated to the unmet needs of those with CLL. Dr. Koffman speaks around the world to fellow patients, physicians, and researchers sharing his unique perspective on how to best move forward in blood cancers.
Under his leadership, in only its first two years, CLLS has started 17 CLL patient support groups across Canada and the US, held several patient educational forums around the world, launched a website (http://cllsociety.org) with 25,000 page views a month, and done original research on how patients make decisions about their cancer treatment that was presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting in 2016.
He is licensed and board certified in Family Medicine in the US and Canada. Dr. Koffman spends his little spare time reading, hiking, surfing, playing with his grandchildren, and enjoying his vegan diet.
“The greatest reward of being a physician is being able to share in my patients’ lives. Being informed by the always changing science of medicine is critical, but that serves only as the backdrop to the opportunity to teach and learn from my patients, as well as share in their joys and sorrows. Being a cancer patient myself affords a special insight and privilege into understanding both sides of the stethoscope.”
