Our faculty strives to live up to their reputation of being the most supportive and approachable, while teaching residents to treat a diverse, under-served patient population. We focus on training outstanding, balanced residents, in a hospital and outpatient environment dedicated to teamwork, community service, work/life balance and physician wellness. Residents cite our faculty as the highlight of the program and the reason they came here.

Ronald Chambers, MD

Hometown: Shasta Lake, CA
Years with the program: Completed residency here and has been with the program since 2005. Program Director since 2010.
Hobbies/Interests: Wakesurfing, skiing, camping, hobby farming, woodworking, 4 kids = watching every kid sport in existence :)
Favorite foods: BBQ tri-tip, anything Mexican, fresh caught fish 
Fun fact: Sprint, Olympic, Half and Full Iron Man 2024
Coffee order: Rockstar 
Areas of Clinical Focus: Procedures, sports medicine, creation of trauma-informed care for victims and survivors of human trafficking.

Timothy Takagi, MD

Hometown: Long Beach, CA
Years with the program: 30+
Hobbies/Interests: Guitar, live music, comedy, travel, goofing off
Favorite foods: Everything! Or whatever the server is having. Just NO cilantro
Fun fact: “He knows something about everything” - everyone
Coffee order: Green tea
Areas of Clinical Focus: Physician well-being, bio ethics, procedures, geriatrics (“because I’m old”)

Sarah Chaffin, MD

Hometown: Northridge, CA
Years with the program: I completed residency here and have been with the program as faculty since 2018.
Hobbies/Interests: Gardening with my husband (enjoying our panache figs this season!), cooking/collecting cookbooks (currently working through Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking), rediscovering children’s literature through my kids’ eyes/making childhood magical, carving out a life of service and joy. 
Favorite foods: Korean food, BLTs (but the tomatoes have to be from the garden), black coffee, popcorn. 
Fun fact: I love dabbling in “old lady hobbies.”  
Coffee order: Black (preferably a pour over)
Areas of Clinical Focus: Population/community health, hospital medicine/critical care, breastfeeding and lactation medicine, trauma-informed care.

Matthew Gibson, MD

Hometown: Sacramento, CA
Years with the program: since 2017
Hobbies/Interests: my 4 kids, martial arts, chain mail, encaustic art
Favorite foods: coffee, boba
Fun fact: Star Wars, I love. 
Coffee order: It doesn’t matter as long as my cup is full
Areas of Clinical Focus: mental health (broadly, but especially trauma-informed care, psychoanalysis); integrative medicine; street medicine; slow medicine.

Toussaint Mears-Clarke, MD, MBA, FAAFP

Hometown: Kingston, Jamaica
Years with the program: since 2017
Hobbies/Interests: Pokemon, playing music, raising chickens, organic farming, super cars
Favorite foods: oxtail, goat, beef tartare, gambas al ajillo
Fun fact: I play over 5 instruments
Coffee order: No coffee needed
Areas of Clinical Focus: Obstetrics, POCUS, Transgender Health, Advocacy

Nancy Nguyen, DO

Hometown: Irvine, CA
Years with the program: I completed residency here and have been with the program as faculty since 2014.
Hobbies/Interests: Travelling, eating good food, relaxing on any beach, family adventures, snacking, spending time in Truckee, and searching for the perfect Matcha latte.
Favorite foods: Vietnamese food, Sushi, Mexican food and mangos
Fun fact: I’m always cold
Coffee order: Nitro cold brew or matcha latte 
Areas of Clinical Focus: Trauma-informed care, geriatrics, immigrant health, medical education  

Richard N Gray, Jr. MD – Volunteer Clinical Faculty

Dr. Gray did undergraduate studies at UC Davis, received his MD at La Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, did a Fifth Pathway program and Internship at South Baltimore General Hospital, then completed his Family Medicine residency at the University of Colorado, in Denver. Providing cradle-to-grave care, he has assisted women giving birth and served as a hospice director, doing everything else in between, including assisting at surgery and providing his patients inpatient and outpatient care.  His medical career included:

- Being part of a small group practice, in Brownsville, CA for five years, 
- Solo practice, in Paradise, CA for 15 years,
- Urgent Care, in Sacramento, for 2 years, then
- Corrections Medicine with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for 15 years, retiring after serving as chief physician and surgeon at High Desert State Prison.

Subsequently he has been enjoying sharing experience with residents in the Family Medicine residency here at Methodist Hospital.

Richard D. DeFelice, MD, MPH | Intensivist/Hospitalist

Dr. DeFelice received his MD degree from Loyola Stritch School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Arizona in 1979, then completed fellowships in Infectious Diseases and Pulmonary Disease. Dr. DeFelice is Board Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, Infectious Disease, Pulmonary Medicine and Critical Care Medicine, and oversees the Internal Medicine/ICU rotations at Methodist Hospital. He was voted as one of "Best Physicians" in Sacramento by the Sacramento Magazine.

Jennifer Cox | Program Director

Jennifer Cox, is Program Director, Human Trafficking Medical Safe Haven, for Dignity Health’s Family Medicine Residency and system Human Trafficking Response Program (HTRP) Residency Advisor. Jennifer has been strategically involved in Dignity Health's system-wide human trafficking initiative since 2015, serving on the HTRP steering committee, and as Community Health Specialist, Jennifer lead initiative support for the human trafficking program at 5 of Dignity Health’s Hospital facilities in the greater Sacramento service area. Prior to this role, Jennifer served 5 years as Executive Director for a community based resource center and medical clinic in Sacramento, CA. Jennifer concurrently served 12 years as an ICCE certified women’s health educator for Sutter Health and  20 years as Director of Women’s Community Outreach Programs in Davis, CA.

For the past 25 years, Jennifer’s program support for vulnerable populations has taken her internationally to Kosovo, Brazil, and Greece.