MARCH 2021
RAFFI TACHDJIAN, MD, MPH, FAAAAI

Raffi Tachdjian, MD, MPH, FAAAAI, is a community allergist in Santa Monica, California, where patients experience expert care in a pleasant office setting. His clinic is also the southern California/Los Angeles referral center for the Hereditary Angioedema Association (HAEA) and their patients. He enjoys caring for patients with other rare diseases as well. His path toward a career in allergy/immunology began through his participation in the AAAAI Chrysalis Project, which showed him the importance of mentorship. In fact, he runs his clinic as a mentorship program for pre-health professional school students, many of whom are his medical assistants. He is extremely proud of his staff and gives each the right to opt-out at any time from being treated like a third-year health professional school student. No one has done so to date, and in fact many have gone on to excellent training programs and residencies, and some are even colleagues. He pays all expenses for staff members to attend any allergy meeting that accepts their submitted abstract.

Dr. Tachdjian is also passionate about the role of music therapy as a complementary modality to enhance the lives of his own and many other patients. He has observed oxygen saturation rise by 5 to 9% without supplemental oxygen in chronic respiratory patients, and how painful procedures become more tolerable with music therapy. He recalls his frustration when as a pediatric resident, he was asked to care for a terminally ill 15-year-old cancer patient, who was a guitar virtuoso. The teen requested a guitar, and none could be found in the entire medical center. Mindful that music can lessen pain, fear and anxiety, as well as improve physiologic parameters in neonates, asthmatics, HAE and other patients, Dr. Tachdjian went on to create and lead the Children’s Music Fund. Now celebrating 20 years, this nonprofit provides music therapy by board-certified music therapists to children with chronic and life-altering diseases, and with the advent of telemedicine has a national outreach. As a clinician, mentor and advocate of music therapy, Dr. Raffi Tachdjian is truly a Practice Champion!