David Kaufman

Physician

This is long so feel free to edit:
After earning a BFA from New York University School of the Arts in Filmmaking, an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University in Education, and his MD from New York Medical College, Dr. Kaufman completed his Internal Medicine Residency training at St. Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in New York City.  

He began his Internal Medicine practice in Greenwich Village in NYC just as the epidemic that came to be known as HIV/AIDS exploded.  With St. Vincent’s at the epicenter of this outbreak, he became deeply involved in the care of HIV positive patients and in the research aimed at discovering ways to treat both the opportunistic infections they were dying from and the virus that was causing the destruction of their immune systems.     

As HIV/AIDS became a treatable chronic infection, the practice expanded to include more primary care/general internal medicine patients ranging from 18-105 years old. He also became involved in the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of chronic, often difficult to diagnose and manage conditions, such as Lyme disease, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Viral diseases, vitamin and nutrient deficiencies.     

During the course of his 32 years in practice in NYC, he has been privileged to provide primary care to multiple family generations and to a widely diverse population of patients.  He was responsible for and coordinated the full range of their care, both in the office, in the hospital, and with other consulting physicians. 

In addition to his private medical practice, he was the Medical Director for one of the largest HIV Centers in the New York State, the Director for HIV Clinical Research at St. Vincent’s, and, for several years, Senior Vice President for Network Development at the 7 hospitals that made up the St. Vincent’s hospital system.   As an Attending physician at St. Vincent’s and a teacher of medical students and residents both at the hospital and at the medical school, he received many accolades including being honored by the entire Medical Staff.  Over his many years of practice he was consistently cited in the New York Magazine listing of Best Doctors in New York and has been recognized by the Castle Connolly listing of Top Doctors: New York Metro Area from 1998-2012.    

In 2012, he moved to California and joined Open Medicine Institute where he was the Medical Director of the Open Medicine Clinic, managing the staff and providing the majority of clinical services to patients. In 2017, he opened a new clinic, the Center for Complex Diseases, with a focus on patients suffering from ME/CFS, Dysautonomia, Autoimmune Diseases, and Chronic Infectious Diseases including Tick borne diseases, Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth Syndromes, Connective Tissue Disorders, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. The practice has also expanded to include people with Long Covid, most of whom meet the criteria for a diagnosis of ME/CFS.

He is a member of the ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center at the Stanford University Genome Technology Center and an active participant in several national clinician networks that focus on ME/CFS, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, and Autoimmune Disease. He is on the Board of MEAction and on the Open Medicine Foundation Scientific Advisory Board. As a working member of the U.S. Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) Clinical Coalition and part of the Guideline Committee he co-authored the consensus recommendations that have been published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.