Howard Bessen, MD, FACEP

I grew up (well, sort of “up,” but not very far) in Southern California and went to college at Stanford. The most memorable part of my college experience was competing in gymnastics for four years. Went to med school at UCLA and then did a “flexible” (now called transitional) internship at Harbor (then called Harbor General Hospital). This was good timing, because Harbor started an EM residency during my internship in 1978. I was accepted into the program and have been here ever since. I was the residency program director for 16 years, and am very proud of the great clinicians and future EM leaders who came through the program during that time (several of these EM leaders are now my colleagues on the Harbor faculty). I’m close to completing an eight-year term on the ABEM Board of Directors.
My wife is a pediatrician in private practice. We have three teenagers, who will eventually all be in college at the same time. My hobby is raising and breeding snakes and lizards. You need to be aware of this before entering my office.