Dr. Richard Philip Permutt, MD

Welcome to My Doctor Online, a web site that my colleagues and I developed to make it easier for you to take care of your healthcare needs. On this site you will find answers to many of your questions about my clinical practice. Also included are several online features that will allow you to e-mail me, check your laboratory results and refill prescriptions. I hope you find its content informative and useful. Background

I was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana and always wanted to be a doctor. I had a public school education, but after high school decided to leave for a more sedate setting and attended college at the University of Florida. From there my education led me all over the south- medical school at the University of Alabama, and internship and residency at Baylor University.

I finally left the south for San Francisco where I trained in Gastroenterology at UCSF. Having experienced cooler weather for the first time in my life, my family and I decided to …stay in the Bay Area and settled in Santa Rosa at Kaiser Permanente where we have been since 1981.

I believe in partnering with patients in helping to care for them. Healing is natural but, at times, needs to be facilitated through medical interventions and patients' intervention. I am classically trained in science but am open to new ideas which can help patients. I prefer complimentary style medicine over alternative style medicine when dealing with unproven methods.

I love gastroenterology. It requires a healthy understanding of psychology as well as other organ systems. Each patient I see is unique and challenging.
The practice of endoscopy allows me to use many fine motor and visual skills that I learned as a musician.

Great health resources that I refer to is the Google websites related to medicine and find this a wonderful source of information for my patients. A word of caution- try to get info from reputable sites.