Following a successful career in academic medicine, serving on the faculties of the University of Washington and the University of Hawaii, Dr. Pion returned to Los Angeles in 1979 to pursue healthcare telecommunications on a full-time basis. Ron has been involved in the development and production of television/radio and other interactive electronic programming for health care professionals and patients for more than 40 years.

Dr. Pion hosted his first medical television series in 1968 on Seattle’s PBS station and followed this with a health series for children on Seattle’s NBC affiliate. He co-produced and hosted a health-oriented ABC radio series for teenagers, and organized the nation’s first hospital-based closed circuit television system for patients at Kapiolani Maternity Medical Center in Honolulu. During the 1970s Dr. Pion co-developed and hosted a parenting series on Hawaii’s PBS station, and produced patient education video programs designed to help document informed consent.

He served as medical correspondent for KNBC’s Alive and Well news feature in Los Angeles, and was the founder of Hospital Satellite Network (HSN). HSN designed, produced, and distributed hundreds of accredited education and training programs for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, other healthcare professionals, and patients. The network became an innovative leader in developing cost-efficient medical video teleconferencing during the 1980s.

He co-developed and hosted the nationally syndicated television series, Group One Medical, and hosted specific-disease-management videos targeted to the homecare audience. He was host of Milestones in Medicine, a regular Sunday night feature of Lifetime Medical Television during 1990s. He’s also hosted a series of specific-disease-management videocassettes for patients produced by the Hume Medical Group of Toronto.

Ron served on the board of directors of the American Academy of Home Care Physicians and the Abbey HealthCare Group. He co-authored a book about the business of caring for patients at home published by McGraw-Hill in 1999. Dr. Pion is a graduate of New York University (Phi Beta Kappa) and New York Medical College (Alpha Omega Alpha). He is a clinical professor at the UCLA School of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.