Richard Pan

Richard Pan (born October 28, 1965) is an American politician currently serving in the California State Senate. He is a Democrat representing the 6th Senate District, which encompasses parts of Sacramento and Yolo counties.
Pan is a member of the California Asian & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus. Prior to being elected to the State Senate in 2014, he was a member of the California State Assembly representing the 5th Assembly District, and after the 2010 redistricting, the 9th Assembly District.
A pediatrician by training, he continues to practice during his service as a state senator.

Pan introduced California Senate Bill 277 in 2015, which requires vaccinations for California school children. Political adversaries failed to force a recall election on Pan after the bill was approved by Governor Jerry Brown.

Prior to serving in the state senate, he was a member of the California State Assembly. Pan was Chair of the California Assembly Committee on Health, and is a member on the Committee on Agriculture, Committee on Appropriations, and Committee on Revenue and Taxation. Previously, Pan was Vice-Chair of the California Assembly Veteran's Affairs Committee and served on the committees on Aging and Long-Term Care, and Accountability and Administrative Review. He was also the Chair of the Select Committee on Healthcare Workforce and Access to Care. He continues to practice at Wellspace Health's Oak Park Community Clinic, where he established the pediatric clinic while at UC Davis Children's Hospital.

Prior to being elected to the state assembly, he was a pediatrician and professor at the UC Davis Children's Hospital, where he led the pediatric residency program. Pan founded Communities and Health Professionals Together (formerly Communities and Physicians Together), a nationally recognized program that partners resident physicians with community associations to improve community health. In 2005, CPT received the Community Campus Partnerships for Health Award and in 2008, Pan received the Campus Compact Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service Learning for his work on CHPT. Pan also taught community development at UC Davis.

Expanding beyond his work to put doctors in touch with communities, Pan dedicated his private time to a number of local boards, organizations, and causes aimed at strengthening the community. He is a board member of the United Way California Capitol Region, a past board member of BloodSource, a regional blood bank, and served for six years as a Commissioner on the Sacramento First 5 Commission, which supports programs for children 0–5 years. He was a founding board member and chair of Healthy Kids Healthy Future, a regional administrative agency that obtained health care coverage for over 65,000 children in Colusa, El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and Yuba counties. He also was a founding member of the Sacramento Health Improvement Project, a coalition of physicians, hospitals, clinics, and community activists working to strengthen the health care safety-net in Sacramento County.

Pan is a nationally recognized university educator. In addition to teaching as a faculty member at UC Davis, he has published numerous papers on medical education and physician workforce. He served on the American Medical Association Council on Medical Education and on the board of the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education, which oversees physician residency education in the United States. He also was an Ambulatory Pediatric Association National Pediatric Faculty Development Scholar.

Pan has received many awards for his community and professional leadership including the UC Davis Chancellor’s Award for Diversity and Community, the Medical Board of California Physician Humanitarian Award, the American Academy of Pediatrics Abraham Jacobi Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in pediatrics, the Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society Medical Honor Award, the California School Nurses Organization Lydia Smiley Award, the United Way California Capitol Region Clarence La Rue Outstanding Volunteer Award, and the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Sacramento Hearts and Hands Award.

Pan received a B.A. in Biophysics at The Johns Hopkins University, a M.D. at the University of Pittsburgh entering into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, and a M.P.H. at Harvard University. He completed his pediatric residency at Massachusetts General Hospital also serving as Chief Resident in Pediatrics and was a Primary Care Research Fellow and Anne Dyson Pediatric Advocacy Fellow at Children's Hospital Boston. He also was a California HealthCare Foundation Health Care Leadership Fellow.