Nephrologist · Founder · Chair, Division of Nephrology, Hoag Hospital

Eric A. Wechsler, MD, FNKF

MD, FNKF  ·  Board-Certified Nephrologist  ·  Fellow, National Kidney Foundation

Dr. Eric Wechsler has practiced nephrology in Orange County for more than twenty years and founded Southern California Kidney Associates in 2008. He is board certified in both internal medicine and nephrology. He has been elected twice by the medical staff at Hoag Hospital Newport Beach to chair its Division of Nephrology, and serves as Chief of Dialysis Services — meaning the physician who manages your care in the office is the same one directing kidney care at the hospital.

Dr. Wechsler completed his undergraduate work in neuroscience at the University of Florida, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors, and earned his medical degree at the University of Miami. His work in free clinics across inner-city Miami earned him the Alpha Omega Alpha award for the best doctor-patient relationship in his graduating class — a recognition of the approach that still defines how he practices. He completed his internal medicine residency and nephrology fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and was named a Fellow of the National Kidney Foundation in 2011.

His clinical focus is the kidney's relationship to everything else: cardiorenal and hepatorenal disease, glomerular disease, hypertension, and transplant medicine. He believes most kidney disease is not inevitable — that with early detection and aggressive treatment of the conditions driving it, progression can be slowed and often prevented.

In 2012, after years of watching patients leave dietitian appointments confused and demoralized — told what they could never eat again, with no clear sense of what they still could — he built Pocket Dietitian, an iPhone app that translated medical dietary restrictions into practical, real-time guidance. The same instinct drives the patient education his practice publishes today. Dr. Wechsler volunteers at the Share Our Selves Clinic in Costa Mesa, continuing work he began as a medical student.