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# Saint John’s gets an earful in naming new president
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/saint-johns-gets-an-earful-in-naming-new-president/
- Published: 2004-01-16T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T03:33:38.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Health, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

A Santa Monica plastic surgeon has been named president of the Saint John’s Health Center medical staff.

David Butler — also an ear, nose and throat specialist, and affiliated with Saint John’s Health Center for nearly 20 years — this month will begin his two-year term.

As president of the medical staff, he will guide and advise the more than 800 physicians affiliated with the hospital on issues, including patient care, hospital practices and medicine trends. He also will lead the physicians’ transition to the new Saint John’s Health Center, scheduled to open this year.

“At Saint John’s we’re lucky to have a great medical staff with many highly accomplished physicians and specialists,” Butler said. “I see my role as a kind of touchstone — a central place where they can give suggestions, opinions and input on the practices at the hospital.”

A leader at Saint John’s Health Center for many years, Butler in 1991 began serving on the executive committee of the medical staff. He has been active on several committees, including the design committee, where he was instrumental in giving input from the medical staff to the design team for the new Saint John’s Health Center, according to hospital officials.

“Dr. Butler’s fine leadership abilities, as well as his firm commitment to the health and well being of patients and Saint John’s Medical Center make him well qualified to lead the medical staff here,” said Bruce Lamoureux, the chief executive officer of Saint John’s Medical Center. “We’re looking forward to the contributions he’ll make as president of the medical staff.”

Butler, who also specializes in facial plastic and head and neck surgery, is an assistant clinical professor of head and neck surgery at UCLA School of Medicine. He has written numerous papers and lectured internationally on facial plastic surgery techniques, sinusitis and related topics.

A board-certified head and neck surgeon, Butler is in Alpha Omega Alpha — an honor medical society that elects its members. He is a member of the American Academy of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery and has been an executive board member in both the Bay Surgical Society and the Pacific Oncology Society.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 16, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/011604.pdf?ref=smdp.com)