Yossef Aelony, M.D.

Posted November 27th, 2007

Yossef Aelony studied at the Universities of Chicago  & Minnesota, where he graduated first in his major field of undergraduate study & was awarded Phi Beta Kappa.   His initial interest was neurophysiology, but after a stint in Marseille, France, he attended Minnesota Medical School, focusing on patient care.   Postgraduate training in internal medicine & respiratory diseases was undertaken at the UCLA Affiliated Hospitals, and, later,  at the Laennec Hospital in Paris & the Brompton Hospital in London.   Since studying medical thoracoscopy in Europe, he reintroduced the procedure to Southern California, lecturing widely on the subject beginning in the early 1980s & coauthoring a book,  Practical Thoracoscopy.     While working as a pulmonologist/intensivist  with the Harbor City center of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group for over 30 years, he has been  actively involved with post graduate respiratory eduction at Harbor UCLA, where he is clinical professor.  

 After coauthoring the first report on meat wrapper's asthma in 1973,  he remained active in the field of asthma treatment, organizing same day asthma education and treatment clinics at Kaiser Permanente (KP).  He lectured widely on asthma care until the late 1980s, when pleural disease, thoracoscopy, and pleurodesis became his passion.  He has served on the thoracoscopy  faculty  courses in Long Beach, Boston,  Marseille, and Alexandroupolis, Greece.   He has published original studies on mesothelioma, pleural pH, talc pleurodesis, thoracentesis, asthma care and is a pleural disease reviewer for several medical journals, including the Lancet, Chest, & Respiration.    He lectured in 1991 in central America and  since 1996 he has participated in 7 French and American medical missions to Viet Nam, where he recently trained the Hanoi pulmonary team in doing thoracoscopy under local anesthesia.  In  2006, he received a Chest Foundation Humanitarian Award for his work in Viet Nam.     Dr. Aelony is past president of the medical staff in Harbor City and the Los Angeles County Trudeau Society, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of  Breathe Los Angeles.