Bio

Dr. Nawal L. Atwan Johansen, MD, FACP is a Board Certified Internal Medicine Physician. She practices as a primary care internal medicine physician in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. She received her BA from Princeton University, MD from Harvard Medical School, and Internal Medicine Residency training at Stanford Hospital and Clinics. She served on the Stanford Medical School faculty as Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine. In recognition of her excellence in patient care, she received the Stanford Health Care Faculty Recognition Award for Patient Centeredness for achieving the 99th percentile of patient satisfaction and likelihood to recommend scores.

Dr. Johansen was selected by the Stanford Department of Medicine and the Stanford Health Care Administration to be the founding Medical Director of Stanford Health Care’s Clinical Advice Services to build a clinical triage program from the ground up for the entire Stanford Health Care enterprise, serving over 100 specialties, 2000 faculty physicians and over 1 million patients.

Dr. Johansen is an experienced primary care physician focused on providing personalized, high quality care to her patients. Her expertise is in disease diagnosis and management, prevention of disease, health promotion, and advanced practices to promote long term wellness. Dr. Johansen has a private concierge medicine practice in Palo Alto, California. She is credentialed at Stanford Hospital and is a member of the Adjunct Clinical Teaching Faculty at Stanford Medical School.

Clinical Focus

  • Internal Medicine
  • Preventive Medicine
  • Personalized Medicine

Administrative Appointments

  • Medical Staff, Stanford Health Care (2009 - Present)
  • Adjunct Clinical Faculty, Stanford University School of Medicine (2021 - Present)
  • Faculty Physician, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine (2009 - 2021)
  • Medical Director, Stanford Hospital and Clinics Clinical Advice Service (2015 - 2021)
  • Chair, Abstract Committee, American College of Physicians Northern California Chapter (2013 - 2021)
  • Associate, Educators for CARE, Stanford University School of Medicine (2010 - Present)
  • Faculty Preceptor for Stanford Medical Students in Primary Care Clinic, Stanford University School of Medicine, Outpatient Rotation (2009 - Present)
  • Faculty Preceptor for Stanford Residents, Stanford Internal Medicine Resident Clinic (2009 - Present)
  • Faculty Lecturer on Primary Care Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Course 313 (2009 - Present)
  • Committee Member, Stanford Wellbeing Committee (2013 - 2015)
  • Committee Member, Stanford Physician Wellness Committee (2014 - 2021)
  • Elected Representative, Stanford Committee On Residency Training and Clinical Services, Stanford University (2006 - 2009)
  • Medical Student Clinical Preceptor, Harvard Medical School (2004 - 2006)

Honors & Awards

  • Fellow, American College of Physicians (2016-Present)
  • Medical Staff Awards Ceremony, 99th Percentile Likelihood to Recommend Score Award, Stanford Health Care (2019)
  • Chair, Abstract Committee, American College of Physicians Northern California (2013-2021)
  • Clinical Excellence Leadership Training, Stanford Health Care (2016-2017)
  • Educational Mentor, Selected, Stanford University School of Medicine Clinical Teaching Seminar Series Honors Certificate Program (2016-2017)
  • Pasteur Clinical Research Scholarship, Harvard Medical School (2003-2004)
  • Senior Thesis Award, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (2001)
  • Tuberculosis Initiative Research Associate Scholarship, Princeton University Project 55 (1999)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

  • Chair, American College of Physicians California Chapter Northern Region Academic Abstract Committee (2013 - 2020)
  • National Faculty Presenter, American College of Physicians Board of Internal Medicine Recertification Exam Prep Review Course (2015 - 2018)
  • National Workshop Presenter and Session Coordinator, Society of General Internal Medicine National Conference, Washington, DC (2017 - 2017)
  • National Abstract Reviewer, American College of Physicians National Abstract Competition (2017 - 2017)
  • Workshop Presenter and Session Coordinator, Society of General Internal Medicine California-Hawaii Regional Meeting, Los Angeles, CA (2015 - 2015)
  • Workshop Presenter and Session Coordinator, Western Group on Educational Affairs Regional Conference, San Diego, CA (2015 - 2015)
  • Editorial Review Board Member, American Board of Internal Medicine Essentials Questions (2014 - 2014)
  • Co-Author and Contributor, American College of Physicians Smart Medicine Pier Review, Screening for Osteoporosis (2013 - 2013)

Professional Education

  • Residency: Stanford University Hospital -Clinical Excellence Research Center (2009) CA
  • Medical Education: Harvard Medical School (2006) MA
  • BA, Princeton University (2001)
  • Board Certification: American Board of Internal Medicine, Internal Medicine (2009)

Community and International Work

  • Physician, Leyte, Philippines

    Topic

    Medical Mission

    Partnering Organization(s)

    ABC's for Global Health

    Populations Served

    Indigent Filipinos

    Location

    International

    Ongoing Project

    No

    Opportunities for Student Involvement

    No

  • Community Lectures, Avenidas Community Center, Palo Alto; Stanford Health Library Palo Alto, CA

    Topic

    Osteoporosis and Hypertension

    Location

    Bay Area

    Ongoing Project

    No

    Opportunities for Student Involvement

    No

  • Community Health Screening Fairs

    Topic

    Volunteer

    Ongoing Project

    No

    Opportunities for Student Involvement

    No

Contact

  • Academic
    natwan@stanford.edu
    University - Faculty other teaching Department: School of Medicine - Senior Associate Dean for Medical Student Education Position: Adjunct Clinical Instructor
  • Clinical (Primary)  805 El Camino Real Ste A Palo Alto, CA 94301 (650) 206-9961 (fax)

Additional Clinical Info

Additional Info

  • Other Names:
    Nawal Atwan
    Nawal Johansen
    Nawal L Atwan Johansen
  • SUNet ID(s):
    natwan

Links

All Publications

  • Effect of opioid prescribing guidelines in primary care. Medicine Chen, J. H., Hom, J., Richman, I., Asch, S. M., Podchiyska, T., Johansen, N. A. 2016; 95 (35)

    Abstract

    Long-term opioid use for noncancer pain is increasingly prevalent yet controversial given the risks of addiction, diversion, and overdose. Prior literature has identified the problem and proposed management guidelines, but limited evidence exists on the actual effectiveness of implementing such guidelines in a primary care setting.A multidisciplinary working group of institutional experts assembled comprehensive guidelines for chronic opioid prescribing, including monitoring and referral recommendations. The guidelines were disseminated in September 2013 to our medical center's primary care clinics via in person and electronic education.We extracted electronic medical records for patients with noncancer pain receiving opioid prescriptions (Rxs) in seasonally matched preintervention (11/1/2012-6/1/2013) and postintervention (11/1/2013-6/1/2014) periods. For patients receiving chronic (3 or more) opioid Rxs, we assessed the rates of drug screening, specialty referrals, clinic visits, emergency room visits, and quantity of opioids prescribed.After disseminating guidelines, the percentage of noncancer clinic patients receiving any opioid Rxs dropped from 3.9% to 3.4% (P = 0.02). The percentage of noncancer patients receiving chronic opioid Rxs decreased from 2.0% to 1.6% (P = 0.03). The rate of urine drug screening increased from 9.2% to 17.3% (P = 0.005) amongst noncancer chronic opioid patients. No significant differences were detected for other metrics or demographics assessed.An educational intervention for primary care opioid prescribing is feasible and was temporally associated with a modest reduction in overall opioid Rx rates. Provider use of routine drug screening increased, but overall rates of screening and specialty referral remained low despite the intervention. Despite national pressures to introduce opioid prescribing guidelines for chronic pain, doing so alone does not necessarily yield substantial changes in clinical practice.

    View details for DOI 10.1097/MD.0000000000004760

    View details for PubMedID 27583928

  • Screening for Osteoporosis American College of Physicians Smart Medicine Pier Review Papaioannou, MD, A., Ferko, MSc, N., Adachi, MD, J., Watts, MD, N. B., Koehler, MD, E., Atwan, MD, N. 2013; January
  • Measuring improvement following total hip and knee arthroplasty using patient-based measures of outcome. journal of bone and joint surgery. American volume Marx, R. G., Jones, E. C., Atwan, N. C., Closkey, R. F., Salvati, E. A., Sculco, T. P. 2005; 87 (9): 1999-2005

    Abstract

    Patient-derived outcome scales have become increasingly important to physicians and clinical researchers for measuring improvement in function after surgery. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the ability of health-status instruments to measure early functional recovery after total hip and total knee arthroplasty.Four hundred and six patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty and 266 patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty completed health-status questionnaires preoperatively and six months postoperatively to determine the standardized response mean. In the second phase of the study, a group of patients undergoing knee and hip arthroplasty were evaluated with several instruments before and after surgery to test for postoperative ceiling effects.The standardized response mean at six months was 1.7 for the MODEMS Hip Core, 1.2 for the MODEMS Knee Core, and 1.5 and 1.1 for the Physical Component Summary of the SF-36 for patients managed with hip and knee replacement, respectively. A standardized response mean of 1.0 is generally satisfactory for measuring improvement in orthopaedic surgery. In Phase 2 of the study, the vast majority of patients who had a score of 95 to 100 (that is, a maximum or near-maximum score) on the joint-specific scales generally believed that the hip or knee was normal and could not be better.The MODEMS, Oxford, and WOMAC scales all demonstrated a ceiling effect following total knee and total hip arthroplasty. These scores likely reflected the patients' perception of the status of the knee or hip rather than an inability to measure their improvement beyond the highest possible score. The Physical Component Summary score of the SF-36 had similar standardized response means when compared with hip and knee-specific instruments, and, therefore, consideration should be given to using this scale without a joint-specific scale for the measurement of improvement following total knee and total hip replacement, as a way to decrease responder burden (that is, the time required to complete the questionnaires).

    View details for PubMedID 16140815