Specialties (Departments)

To learn about a particular specialty department, click on a department name in the list at left.

Each department offers the advantage of access to the full range of Sansum Clinic resources. These include:

• convenient locations throughout Santa Barbara County
• outstanding physician care and nursing care
• choice of numerous primary care and specialty care providers
• prompt access to specialty care and urgent care services
• coordinated appointment scheduling
• physicians’ desktop access to our state-of-the-art digital x-ray results
• comprehensive laboratory services
• unified medical records (e.g. charts, history)

Multi-specialty health care practices are rare these days. While many others have been swallowed up by national conglomerates, we remain firmly rooted in the same community we’ve been serving for more than 85 years.

Comprehensive

With more than 140 physicians and more than 30 specialties, Sansum Clinic provides access to a team of medical professionals with remarkable depth of skill and expertise. One in four of our staff physicians is double-boarded (board certified in two or more specialties), and 1 in 16 is triple-boarded. Practicing more than 30 specialties ranging from pediatrics all the way through geriatrics, patients tell us that a lifetime of care has all been provided by their doctors at Sansum Clinic. Whether you need out-patient care, ambulatory care, urgent care, hospital care, home health care, or nursing home care, Sansum Clinic has available all of the services your family needs. Even ancillary services are provided: pharmacies, optical shop, laboratory testing, and radiology services are all available directly from Sansum Clinic.

Convenient

At Sansum Clinic, we care about meeting your needs. That's why we're here when you need us, and we're here where you need us. With more than a dozen locations throughout Santa Barbara County;, we make it convenient to visit a primary care provider when you need one. With extended evening hours and weekend hours for our urgent care services, we make it possible to obtain convenient drop-in treatment for many urgent health needs without the high costs and long delays typically associated with an emergency room visit. By accepting payment through a wide range of options which includes traditional health insurance plans, HMOs, PPOs, Medicare, self-pay, and more, we make it convenient for you to keep Sansum Clinic as your long-term health care provider. With such convenient access to medical services for every stage of life, no wonder so many Sansum Clinic patients trust us to care for generation after generation of their families.

Continuous

Individually and collectively, we’re a steady presence in the community. We opened in Santa Barbara in 1921, and have grown over the years to locations throughout the county. A non-profit since 1972, Sansum Clinic activities are oriented toward preserving the good health of the local community, rather than enriching stockholders. It’s a mission that continually inspires everyone on the staff. Ours is a practice where one in five providers has been at Sansum Clinic for two decades or more, and where one in three of providers has been in medical practice for that long. The demonstrated commitment that each has shown to the medical profession, and to Sansum Clinic in particular, benefits every patient who gains the reassurance of continuity-of-care.

Cutting-Edge

We were founded by daring innovators whose vision of medicine resulted in the breakthrough development of insulin, and the establishment of one of California’s first specialty care practices — right here in Santa Barbara County. Over the years we have continued that tradition of medical leadership, such as by introducing the first kidney dialysis services to the region, performing Santa Barbara's first liver transplant and coronary bypass surgeries, establishing departments devoted to unusual specialties such as Undersea Medicine and Sleep Disorders, and introducing computerized health screening systems more than a decade before such systems gained widespread acceptance in the health care industry.

Our founders' spirit of innovation is a legacy we carry forward to this day. Whether by ensuring that all of our physicians have desktop access to state-of-the-art digital x-ray results, or by investigating promising new drugs, or by introducing emerging new specialties such as Hospitalists to Santa Barbara, we continue to provide the cutting-edge care that has always been the hallmark of Sansum Clinic.

Santa Barbara has long been recognized as a destination for cutting-edge medical care. In the 1800s and early 1900s, doctors and patients alike were drawn from all parts of the world to the area's unique hot springs and mineral baths, which were reputed to have healing qualities. Today, it is the allure of Sansum Clinic's outstanding physicians, state-of-the-art technology, and highly personalized care that helps to maintain our region's international reputation for medical excellence.

Community-Oriented

We are Santa Barbara. More than a simple presence in the community, Sansum Clinic is operated for the benefit of the community.

As a non-profit organization, our investment is in the good health of Santa Barbara's people. We're managed in the public interest, by local trustees, so that every Santa Barbaran can have access to high-quality, affordable health care.

Our doctors, nurses, and other staff have continued to re-affirm Sansum Clinic's long-standing commitment to place the health and well-being of our community's members first. So it's no surprise that their personal activities so frequently reflect the same community-oriented spirit which they bring to work each day. They volunteer as educators, speaking regularly at local schools, events, and support groups. They serve as team physicians and team nurses for local high schools, colleges, and sporting leagues. They share their expertise, ideas, and enthusiasm as members of the boards of countless civic and professional organizations throughout the county, as well as local, state, and national advisory panels.

Several of our departments have maintained decades-long relationships with charities such as the American Lung Association and SEE International, providing thousands of hours of service to children and adults with unmet health needs. And the organization’s long-standing relationship with the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) pre-med program has resulted in doctors who today work side-by-side with the very same physicians who first inspired, mentored, and educated them at UCSB.

Reflecting the diversity of our patients, our providers speak more than a dozen different languages between them. In addition to English, their language fluency includes Spanish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Chinese, Hindi, and Hungarian — ensuring that a wide cross-section of the community can enjoy direct, personal communication with their Sansum Clinic medical providers.

Finally, Sansum Clinic’s outreach partnerships with local media such as Santa Barbara News-Press, Goleta Valley Voice, South Coast Beacon, and Santa Barbara Pollen and Mold Spore Hotline continually serve to educate the community about health options, concerns, and advancements.