Source: MyFox Chicago
"Dr. Mona" is the medical contributor for FOX Chicago News.She is a triple board-certified medical doctor and an Emmy award-winning medical journalist. Her college degree is from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and she is the only medical doctor inducted into the Medill Hall of Achievement, as well as the only career journalist inducted into the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society. Dr. Mona is a popular event speaker and media trainer and has appeared as a medical expert on CBS, Good Morning America, The Early Show and CNN. She is a highly-regarded author for numerous trade and lay publications.
For her leadership in empowering people across the globe through television, radio, magazine, newspaper and online heath reports, and her work as an emergency medical aid volunteer, Dr. Mona has received almost 50 awards in the past 6 years, including the 2010 Global Humanitarian Award from the Institute of Medicine at Chicago, 2008 Alumni Humanitarian Award from the University of Illinois, 2007 Award of Valor from the National Association of Minority Media Executives and the 2006 Leadership Award from the American Medical Association Foundation.
"I've taken care of people all over the world, and I've come to believe the most important part of any visit to the doctor is health education," said Dr. Mona, who gave up lucrative positions in medical management to pursue her passion to increase the health literacy of the American people.
A 12-year volunteer with humanitarian and disaster agencies, Dr. Mona is widely acclaimed for providing and publicizing emergency medical aid. In October 2010, she will serve as the Medical Director of the Project Hope mission to Suriname and Guyana aboard the USS Iwo Jima. In March 2010, she provided care to hundreds of displaced Haitians living in tent cities. In October 2009, she was the only American physician invited to be a medic for the world’s toughest foot race, the Amazon Jungle Ultra-Marathon, in the Brazilian rainforest. In November 2008, she volunteered to care for indigent patients in Konni, India and Mala, India. In July 2007, she volunteered as an emergency medical aid worker in rural Texas after Hurricanes Dolly and Edouard. And in September and October of 2005, as a member of the Texas-4 Disaster Medical Assistance Team, she offloaded evacuees from helicopters and treated Hurricanes Katrina and Rita patients for 4 weeks in the immediate aftermath of the natural disasters.
In January 2005, when Dr. Mona was on assignment in Sri Lanka reporting on the tsunami aftermath, she was asked to lead a team of paramedics to provide medical care to hundreds of tsunami survivors and subsequently received the Texas Association of Broadcasters Award for Outstanding Valor and Service in Pursuit of Broadcast News Coverage. Devastated by the lack of availability of post-tsunami medical care, Dr. Mona returned to Asia, this time to Banda Aceh, Indonesia, in March 2005, for 5 weeks to provide care to tsunami survivors. While there, she co-produced a profile of the International Medical Corps in a 3-part series that aired on CBS 11 News in May of 2005. Dr. Mona's broadcast and online reports on the tsunami aftermath garnered honors from the Association of Women Journalists, the Asian-American Journalists Association, the South Asian Journalists Association and the Press Club of Dallas.
Some of Dr. Mona’s other domestic disaster deployments include staffing the medical clinics at Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks, after the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, and at Kosovo refugee headquarters in America. Her dedication to emergency response medical relief efforts during the extraordinary circumstances surrounding Hurricane Katrina and the September 11 attacks earned her commendations from Congress, Texas and California governors, City of Dallas, San Bernardino County, Riverside County and the Veterans Administration. She is a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security, four-time winner of the American Medical Association's Physician Recognition Award (in 1997, 2001, 2004 and 2007) and has been honored by her medical peers at the Texas Medical Association, India Medical Association, and American Medical Association.
A former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Mona’s 2004 Emmy award recognized her creative feature "The Health Benefits of Chocolate." Other honors have come from the Radio Television News Directors Foundation, United Cerebral Palsy, California Healthcare Foundation, Illinois State Society of Washington, D.C., and the International Longevity Institute. She was nominated in both 2005 and 2006 for "Woman Journalist of the Year" by the Association of Women Journalists.
Dr. Mona also teamed up with Dr. Phil McGraw on a series that received a 2008 Honorable Mention from the Los Angeles Press Club, 2006 Telly Award, 2006 Katie Award, and 2006 Emmy Award nomination. She co-produced and hosted 2 half-hour specials "Diagnosis: Cancer," and "Cheap Medicine: Mexico's Medications," which earned the 2006 Texas Medical Association Award, 2006 National Headliner Award, 2004 Davey and Telly awards, and nominations for the 2006 Emmys and International Health and Medical Media Awards.
After graduating from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Dr. Mona completed three specialized residencies: Internal Medicine and Occupational Medicine, both in San Francisco; and Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In addition to her formal schooling, Dr. Mona has trained at renowned medical organizations including the National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Harvard Medical School, Betty Ford Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and Clinica del Lavoro in Milan, Italy. She studied terrorism medicine at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel, and emergency response in L'viv, Ukraine. She spent four months studying the health care system in Switzerland as a Rotary Professional Scholar, and has also studied infectious disease and Traditional Chinese Medicine in Hong Kong, China, Vietnam and Japan. She is a visiting associate clinical professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and an associate clinical professor at the University of North Texas School of Public Health.
Dr. Mona began her broadcasting career at WREX-TV in Rockford, IL, while in medical school. She made the leap to full-time medical broadcasting when she took a 90-percent pay cut from medical practice to accept her first full-time television job in 2002. Prior to that, she worked as Medical Director for both San Bernardino and Riverside counties, treating patients and managing services for 18,000 and 100,000 patients, respectively.