Dr. Van Nguyen Melds Western And Alternative Medicine Here For Dr. Van Nguyen, M.D., opening her family and alternative medicine practice in Pacific Palisades last November 5 represented the culmination of a lifelong journey that began in Vietnam. When she opened Holistic Medical Clinic in the U.S. Bank building on Sunset, Nguyen had arrived at a place in life where she could expertly apply both conventional Western medicine and alternative methods to treating a broad range of ailments. ‘My practice is rooted in three parts: body, emotion and spirit,’ Nguyen says. ‘The body manifests symptoms because it is stressed by physical factors (germs, food allergies, nutrition), psychological factors, or spiritual factors. This is why it’s important to treat all three. And the magic of alternative medicine is that I can get all three parts to de-stress by using seven healing techniques.’ Call it a case of ‘practice makes perfect.’ Everything came together for Nguyen while she worked at a San Francisco-area general medical practice, after she received her degrees from UC Davis and the University of California, San Francisco. Until then, she felt dissatisfied merely applying Western techniques. ‘I’ve always been a seeker and interested in spirituality,’ says Nguyen, who spent her medical-school years traveling the world. After an early childhood in Saigon, Nguyen and her family”an aviation-engineer father, a pharmacist mother and a younger brother”left Vietnam, spent a year in Amiens, France, then settled in Garden Grove, where Nguyen’s parents resumed their white-collar professions. Nguyen slipped uneventfully into American life, with few negative memories of her Vietnam past. ‘My parents really sheltered me from the war,’ Nguyen recalls. ‘I remember sometimes we didn’t have rice to eat and we had no electricity after 6 p.m. But I was always surrounded by cousins and grandparents. ‘After Saigon fell and the Communists took over, they closed down private enterprise. So they shut down my mother’s pharmacy and she was sent to work in a balloon factory. Everyone was expected to be blue-collar workers because the Communists wanted to do away with class distinctions.’ Until that point, Nguyen’s father had worked as the head engineer at T’n Son Nhut International, Vietnam’s largest airport. ‘He was sent to re-education camp,’ Nguyen says. ‘He told me some horrific stories which made me think of them as similar to concentration camps. One day, for example, my father was sent out with other prisoners to collect land mines. Every day, for the longest time, he never knew whether that was the day that he would be blown to bits. Someone he knew would lose life or limbs. When he was released from the camp in 1979, he escaped by boat with the waves of boat people fleeing from Vietnam.’ His family later followed. In the U.S., after completing her medical residency, Nguyen joined a private practice in Sausalito, where she learned about alternative medicine. She moved to Los Angeles last August and began exploring locations as far south as Laguna Beach for her practice. But when she visited a friend who lived in the Palisades, she fell in love with this area. ‘I always say that the Palisades found me first,’ Nguyen says, chuckling. ‘It’s not only beautiful on a physical level, but there’s also a strong energy here.’ Like many people here, Nguyen became enamored with the psychological aspects of working in the village’-the small-town vibe; an oasis removed from greater Los Angeles. She is also impressed with her clientele, ages 4 to 80. ‘My patients are smart. They ask questions. They read. They want to be involved in their own health care. An educated patient is an empowered patient.’ Nguyen is board-certified in family medicine, including adult medicine, child care, women’s health, travel medicine, urgent-care services, and preventative medical care. She also practices alternative medicine, specializing in applied kinesiology, clearing emotional stress and traumas (NET), energy medicine, non-invasive allergy testing/allergy elimination (NAET), nutrition therapy, and Oriental medicine. ‘I’m probably one of the few doctors who combines the two,’ Nguyen says. ‘Western medicine asks, Why are you sick? Alternative medicine asks, Why are you not healing? ‘I have great respect for Western medicine,’ she continues. ‘It is a powerful tool to have around, especially for emergencies. If you break a bone, you’ll need a medical doctor. If you have a heart attack, Western medicine might be the only thing keeping you alive. It is in the realm of chronic conditions and disease prevention that alternative medicine shines. ‘Western medicine is still the best tool to suppress the symptoms. But you also need to get to the root of the cause of the illness, and that is where alternative medicine really comes in.’ At Nguyen’s practice, alternative medicine goes hand in hand with Western medicine. Once she identifies the client’s problems, she presents a full range of options. She can handle just about anything–from delivering babies and counseling autistic children to treating viral infections, chronic pain, migraines and acne–‘You name it, I’ve seen it! I never have a dull day,’ says Nguyen, who can also prescribe help and medicine to cope with anxiety, depression and phobias. In addition, people (especially young women) have been coming to Nguyen for help with weight-loss issues. Good nutrition is key, but not enough, she says. ‘You have to talk about digestion. You can be put on a diet until you’re blue in the face, but if you are not digesting properly, it’s not going to work. You’re not what you eat, you are what you can digest and absorb.’ After focusing on nutrition and digestion, ‘I start asking about the person’s emotional stress,’ Nguyen says. Nguyen uses herself as an example of how a person’s emotional environment can have a profound impact on one’s physical symptoms. ‘The best therapy for any kind of healer is actually loving your job,’ Nguyen says. ‘When I was an unhappy doctor [in San Francisco], I was constantly tired, I never felt recharged.’ Today, Nguyen feels energized”Life here is full of adventures, new horizons, interesting people!”and loves helping Palisadians conquer their afflictions. ‘I feel very grateful that I am able to help my patients,’ she says. ‘I believe so much in my vision of holistic care, and I believe in my clinic. I believe that the patients are ready for a different kind of care.’ That vision is the result of her open-minded philosophy, and a creativity that stems from childhood. ‘I used to play piano,’ Nguyen says, laughing as she recalls taking those lessons. ‘And I loved to draw. But I only drew faces. Portraits. I guess I’ve always been really interested in people.’ (The Holistic Medical Clinic is open Monday through Friday at 15247 Sunset Blvd., Suite 206. Same-day appointments are available. Call (310) 460-9220, or visit www.doctorvan.org.)

The deadline is fast approaching for Palisades Charter High School employees to decide whether to return to the Los Angeles School District. More than a third of the current teachers were granted a five-year leave of absence from LAUSD to work at the charter school, and they must decide by April 30 where they plan to work this fall. A major factor influencing the 92 employees’ decision is whether they will receive their lifetime retirement benefits from the district if they choose to stay, said Executive Director Amy Dresser-Held. The district has promised employees they will have the same access to dental, vision and medical benefits they receive now in retirement. LAUSD representatives, however, have not indicated whether Palisades High employees will be eligible for those benefits after this spring. In 2003, Palisades High separated from the district as a fiscally independent charter school and began receiving funding directly from the state instead of through LAUSD. The school, however, gives the district more than $700,000 annually or about $3,900 per working employee for retirement benefits and that money is placed in a pool and used for current retirees, Dresser-Held said. Pali officials don’t know if they can continue to purchase retirement benefits through the district, she said. ‘We’re hopeful that at a minimum we will have a one-year extension, so we can talk about how to deal with this in the long-run,’ Dresser-Held said. Along with Palisades High, employees from three other conversion charter schools, including Granada Hills Charter High School, can return to LAUSD and are also waiting for a response about retirement benefits. In the meantime, PaliHi’s board of directors has set aside $1.5 million for lifetime retirement benefits in a trust fund. ‘We’ve taken a proactive approach to prepare,’ Dresser-Held said. ‘For those folks close to retirement, this is a hard decision and a tense time. Pali has committed to covering folks, and we don’t want lifetime benefits to be the sole determinant.’ School officials are also considering buying health insurance for their 186 eligible employees separate from the district. The school currently gives LAUSD $1.6 million or approximately $8,600 per eligible employee for health insurance. If the school purchases its own healthcare benefits, it will cost about $180,000 more per year but the benefits packages would be similar, said Chief Business Officer Gregory Wood. ‘It’s more expensive on our own than through the district because we are a smaller organization with not as much purchasing power,’ Dresser-Held said. Human Resources Director Colleen McCarthy said she distributed a survey asking employees to indicate their plans. Fifty-five employees returned surveys, and four indicated that they might leave. ‘We understand they must do what’s best for them and their families,’ Dresser-Held said. ‘My general impression is most want to stay. It will be a relatively small group who will leave.’ To prepare for any turnover, McCarthy has attended 10 job fairs and collected 145 resumes across every department. ‘They are all qualified, credentialed teachers or will be credentialed this June,’ she said. ‘It’s a really nice mix of experienced and new teachers who are excited to have their own classes.’ English teacher Dennis Danziger, who has been the most vocal employee about leaving Pali, wrote in a letter to his colleagues and the Palisadian-Post that he feels sad to leave the school, where he loves to teach, but is concerned about his lifetime retirement benefits. Danziger’s mother-in-law, a former public school teacher, was stricken with Alzheimer’s 16 years ago and without her retirement benefits couldn’t afford her care. ‘I’m not going to roll the dice with PaliHi,’ Danziger wrote. ‘I’m not going to convince myself that earning a few thousand extra dollars a year while I teach here is more valuable or precious than a decent medical benefit package that LAUSD provides.’

‘The story of Stan Chambers is the story of television news.’ ‘ Late anchorman Hal Fishman, in his foreword to Chambers’ new memoir, ‘KTLA News at 10: 60 Years With Stan Chambers’ For six decades and counting: television reporter Stan Chambers. Anyone familiar with the veteran correspondent, who has been working on the historic KTLA News broadcast since 1947, knows that when news breaks, Stan is often the first on the scene. The Manson family murders’check. Rodney King’check. The Northridge Quake’check. An April 10 appearance at Village Books on Swathmore’check. That’s right, for once, Chambers himself will be making news when he comes to town to sign copies of his memoir, ‘KTLA’s News at 10: 60 Years With Stan Chambers,’ co-authored by Lynn Price, on April 10 at 7:30 p.m., Village Books (1049 Swathmore Avenue). ‘News at Ten’ opens with a letter from former Palisadian Nancy Reagan and boasts no less than two forewords, one by former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw and another by Chambers’ revered on-air partner, KTLA Prime News anchorman Hal Fishman, who passed away August 7. The year 2007 will go down as a transitional year for KTLA News. Last year not only marked the pioneer news station’s 60th anniversary, but it also marked the departure of key veteran behind-the-scenes people, including longtime Morning Show Executive Producer Marcia Brandwynne, News Director Jeff Wald, General Manager Vinnie Malcolm, and beloved Morning Show host Carlos Amezcua (to KTTV). Looming largest: the unexpected passing of Fishman, a News at 10 fixture since 1960. In ‘News at Ten,’ Chambers, 84, traces his personal trajectory: from his Mid-Wilshire childhood to meeting first wife Beverly, mother of his 11 children. But the core of Chambers’ book, naturally, is a behind-the-scenes glimpse of his adventures in journalism”from the 1949 girl-trapped-in-a-well drama that launched his on-air career to the L.A. Riots, the O. J. Simpson trials, and beyond. Chambers gives ample space to remembering late colleagues anchor Larry McCormick, sports commentator Stu Nahan, and, of course, discussing his personal and professional relationship with the intrepid Fishman, to whom his memoir is dedicated. ‘He was the best,’ Chambers tells the Palisadian-Post. ‘I really miss him.’ [DROPCAP] Stan Chambers has local ties, thanks to his 14 children, three of whom are from his marriage to his second wife, Gege [Beverly passed away in the same month in 1989 that Gege lost her husband]. Two of his sons through marriage, Bill and Hank Elder, live in the Palisades with their respective families. Hank heads the flag committee at the local Sons of the American Legion, while wife Diane sings in the choir at Corpus Christi. They have two sons: Henry, 18, who attended Carlthorpe, Calvary, Loyola, and will soon be attending Pepperdine University; and Joseph, 13, who attended Marquez and now goes to St. Martin of Tours in Brentwood. Bill serves as head coach of the Palisades Pony Baseball Association’s Bronco Dodgers. He and wife Julie, Palisadians of 13 years now, have three boys. Chris and Patrick attend Loyola High School, while Brett is a sixth grader at Corpus Christi. The common chorus from the Chambers clan regarding ‘Papa’ Chambers is: ‘With Stan, what you see on the air is what you get off the air.’ ‘He’s very attentive,’ says Julie says. ‘He shows up for family events.’ ‘Everyone says about Stan, ‘You know what I like about Stan? He just reports the news,” Bill adds. ‘He’s a fantastic role model for all of us. Stan seems to have the capability to not let anything rattle him. He’ll rise above any negativity and always look for the positive in any story or person.’ Case in point: the Great Malibu Fire of 1993. ‘We were watching the fires at night and I watched it up until midnight,’ Bill recalls, ‘and Stan was there, with the embers behind him. I went to sleep, and when I got up at 7:30 a.m., I turn on the TV, and there is Stan, still standing there among the flying embers.’ Hank Elder, who works in commercial real estate downtown, remembers looking out his office window last May when the Griffith Park fire broke out. ‘I’m smelling smoke, I can see flames,’ Hank recalls. ‘I called my mom, I asked her, ‘What’s Stan saying?’ She said, ‘Stan’s not doing the fire.’ I said, ‘Stan Chambers is not doing the frickin’ fire?’ What’s wrong with that?’ So Hank phoned his wife, who used her maiden name back in her old profession. ‘I was a reporter for Channel 9,’ says the erstwhile Diane Zapanta. ‘I hadn’t worked in news for a while, but [then-KTLA News Director] Jeff Wald and I had been dear friends for 20 years.’ The Griffith Park fire hit this native Angeleno hard, and Diane Elder found out from her mother-in-law, ‘Stan is really sad, he’s sitting there watching it on TV. So I hung up, I called up Jeff on his cell, and I said, ‘Jeff, why isn’t my father-in-law covering this fire?’ she says, laughing. ‘He said, ‘That’s a good question.” Correcting that over-sight, Wald dispatched a news crew to meet Chambers at the scene for what, in retrospect, became poignant live television. An on-the-air Fishman appeared visibly surprised when his old colleague Chambers appeared. Once again, the venerable newsmen partnered to cover a breaking emergency. Last Christmas, at a family gathering, Chambers informed Hank and Diane that, thanks to their efforts, the TV journalist not only won a Golden Mike Award for the coverage, but the Griffith Park fire turned out to be the last time that Chambers worked with Fishman before the latter passed away. ‘Who would know that this would be the last story together?’ Hank says. ‘Isn’t that wild? Hal and Stan needed to say good-bye to each other. Without knowing it.’ [DROPCAP] Chambers devotes Chapter 8 of his memoir to the birth of KTLA (and television itself) by Klaus Landsberg, a man whom Chambers clearly respects and owes his career to. The late Landsberg built the station’s initial transmitter with his own two hands. Even many Southern Californians may not realize that KTLA not only embodies the invention of television but, in the process, created and innovated television news several times over, from creating the local news format that has become a worldwide standard, to introducing the news copter as reportage tool, to perfecting the playful, casual Morning News, which inspired a sub-genre of a.m. newstainment. Although Chambers’ first day of work at KTLA was officially December 1, 1947, the year 1949 launched his illustrious on-air career after he spent 27 hours straight covering the infamous Kathy Fiscus incident, which ended tragically when firemen finally pulled her out of a well to discover that she was dead. ‘The impact was just amazing,’ Chambers says. ‘All of the sudden, people were buying a television set.’ ‘Klaus had the tremendous ability to know the audience,’ Chambers continues, recalling how even an atom bomb could not stop Landsberg. The government would not let KTLA film a Nevada atomic bomb test explosion’but that was not about to stop Landsberg. ‘He brought the camera up on Mt. Wilson and pointed it toward Nevada,’ Chambers says, laughing. ‘He would bring transmitters and put them up on mountain peaks with his own two hands and establish the signal. We saw the first atom bomb exploded in the United States.’ Landsberg was not about to let such elaborate handy work transpire without milking it. ‘We spent a lot of money, a lot of time,’ Chambers says. ‘You know the Hellderado Parade in Las Vegas? He aired that the following week.’ The avuncular Chambers laughs hard at the idea that Landsberg could go from the sublime to the ridiculous without batting an eye. ‘Hey, the equipment was already up there.’ [DROPCAP] Like a great basketball player, Chambers instinctively knew when to pass the ball back to Fishman, and he is equally gracious in his own memoir, which he ends with words written by his son, Dave Chambers, and his grandson and journalistic legacy, Jaime Chambers. A new generation of KTLA news personality, the latter follows in his pioneer grandpa’s footsteps. Jaime already gleaned the admiration of his relatives. ‘My boys think he’s cool because he does the surf report,’ says Julie Elder. Jaime Chambers, 28, hit the floor running at KTLA when he joined the station on September 10, 2001. ‘He came out with us every day for six months,’ Stan says of Jaime, one of 34 grandchildren. ‘He really enjoys it.’ In his section of ‘News at Ten,’ Jaime writes of his own serendipitous moments in journalism. Such as the lackadaisical way in which he abandoned a margarita at El Coyote restaurant on Beverly Boulevard as he realized that a small plane had dropped from the sky over West Hollywood and crashed into a Fairfax District apartment building, starting a fire. ‘I was a medic before a reporter. I was also a lifeguard in San Diego,’ Jaime tells the Post, as he recalls rushing to the Spalding Avenue crash site on June 6, 2003. Jaime’s assistance, first medically and then journalistically in relaying details on the air to KTLA reporter Ted Garcia, served him well, as Garcia graciously introduced him live as his assistant producer. The broadcast won an award and cemented the junior Chambers’ newshound career, in effect becoming his Kathy Fiscus story. ‘You take off fireman gear and reporting is like medical work,’ says Jaime, who gets a similar adrenaline rush from reporting. He still carries a medical bag with him’just in case! Among the news the younger Chambers has covered: rival surfer gangs battling over beach turf in the Palisades. Himself married with two young children, Jaime tells the Post, ‘You only get time with Stan when you’re at work because he has so many children and grandchildren, so it’s insanity.’ Jaime smiles as he recalls a classic Stan moment. ‘It was the hottest day of the year,’ he recalls. ‘I was wearing a suit and tie because grandpa told me to wear a suit to work. We go to Woodland Hills. I asked him, Do you think I should wear a suit to my internship? He says, ‘Always. And of course, if it’s really hot, you can take off your jacket.” Jaime can already empathize with the odd quasi-celebrity experience of ‘Papa’ Chambers, who sometimes gets stopped for autographs while working out in the field. The fact that his grandfather’s reputation of integrity and professionalism precedes him ‘has helped my work immensely. When trying to get information, young reporters get shut down all the time. I get hugs.’ Jaime does not necessarily feel the pressure to live up to grandpa’s legend because ‘there’s no comparison: Stan is a master. ‘I always kid with him and say, ‘I started out as a TV reporter at 22, and you started at 24. He’ll say to me, ‘Yeah, but they hadn’t invented television when I was starting out, so I was at a disadvantage.'”

The Palisades-Malibu YMCA pool in Temescal Gateway Park remains closed because of the Y’s latest concern: liability for the hillside above the pool. Executive Director Carol Pfannkuche said Tuesday that her organization is worried about the hillside’s stability and the Y’s liability should a house come sliding down. After the pool was closed February 9 because of a water recirculation leak, the Y was given a quote of $350,000 to repair the aging pipes, but was also given a $25,000 estimate that could possibly work as a ‘Band-aid’ to fix the leak. On Tuesday, Pfannkuche showed the Palisadian-Post a six-inch plastic pipe that extends from a backyard on Rimmer Road down the hill to about 10 feet above the pool. Water was still in the pipe, and the ground around the pipe, about 50 sq. ft., was saturated. The area is near the site of a 1998 slide that closed the pool for several weeks. ‘We can’t make a decision on a contract until we know if the facility is safe to operate,’ Pfannkuche said. ‘It’s not clear who would take the responsibility.’ She referred to a renewed five-year lease with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which has not yet been signed. ‘This is a distraction being put forward by the Y so they don’t have to deal with all the swimmers who are saying ‘fix this pool,” the Conservancy’s Executive Director Joe Edmiston told the Post. ‘We’re not going to take the blame. ‘I’ve gotten calls from swimmers who say that I’m endangering their mental health because I’m not allowing the Y to fix the pool,’ Edmiston said. ‘The Conservancy isn’t in the swimming-pool business.’ The pool is on land previously owned by the Presbyterian Synod before it was purchased by the Conservancy. ‘We’re happy to have the pool, but we’re just not in that business,’ said Edmiston, who reiterated that the Conservancy has a deal under which the Y pays one dollar a year. In exchange the Y is responsible for the operations, maintenance and repairs at the pool, and is then allowed leeway to charge whatever fees it wants. As part of the agreement, the Conservancy is given two hours of pool use a day for their youth camps. ‘The taxpayers will not assume a scintilla of responsibility for the pool’s liability,’ Edmiston emphasized. The past two months have been frustrating for the hundreds of people who love the Y pool’master swimmers, lap and water exercisers, high school and Y swim teams and their families, as they wait for repairs to begin. Legal counsel for the Conservancy, Laurie Collins said that there’s no evidence of any hillside damage and she doesn’t understand the delay, either. ‘I drafted a lease almost three weeks ago [March 11] and have not received any comments back,’ Collins said. ‘It’s the same boilerplate lease that we used for the two preschools [Little Dolphins and Jewish Early Childhood Center].’ The existing lease in the 1994 option agreement for the Y’s purchase plan for the corner of Sunset and Temescal states: ‘Lease. Conservancy will honor the existing pool lease between the Synod and the YMCA for the term of that lease, and will continue the lease on the same terms thereafter for the existing useful life of the existing pool. The parties agree that on the expiration of said existing life, the parties will enter into negotiations for the possible replacement of said pool on such reasonable conditions as can be agreed to at such time for the continued use and/or management of the facility by the YMCA.’ Although the Conservancy’s new lease document is 14 pages, Collins said that the liability issues for the pool are exactly the same as the shorter document; the only difference is that the Conservancy lists them. Pfannkucke acknowledged that the Y has received the new draft, but felt the Y could not move forward until its board of directors and lawyers believe the facility is safe. A task force of seven people, some of whom are Y members and some of whom are swimmers, has been organized. Pfannkuche said people could write their concerns and send them to the task force at the YMCA, 821 Via de la Paz. Edmiston reiterated that under the current lease, the Y is responsible for all liability regarding the pool.