Center for Complex Diseases

At the Center for Complex Diseases, we believe in the need to understand the interplay of the immune system, and its effect on patient health. Our personalized, multifaceted treatment aims to understand the myriad factors responsible for chronic complex diseases and design treatment plans based on patient history, laboratory data, and differential diagnosis. 

All our doctors at CCD are working members of the U.S. Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) Clinical Coalition and part of the Guideline Committee. They have helped write the consensus recommendations published in the Mayo Clinic proceedings - https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(21)00513-9/fulltext

For more information click on 

https://www.centerforcomplexdiseases.com/

Meet our Doctors:

Bela Chheda, MD (Internal Medicine , Infectious Diseases ) - BIO

After completing a 3-year residency program in Internal Medicine at The University of Southern California  in 2002 she worked at Kaiser Permanente Urgent Care in San Rafael, CA.  From 2003-2005, Dr. Chheda completed an Infectious Disease Fellowship at USC Medical Centers including the USC University Hospital, Los Angeles County Hospital, Norris Cancer Hospital and the Rand Schrader HIV Clinic.  Dr. Chheda received her Board Certification in Infectious Diseases in 2005 and was recertified in 2015.  She is also Board Certified in Internal Medicine. 
From 2005 - 2016, Dr. Chheda practiced Infectious Diseases in the Easy Bay of California covering the hospitals of John Muir, Mt. Diablo, and Sutter Antioch. During this time, she began recognizing an increasing gap between patient diagnosis, and the limited explanations offered by traditional medicine for many chronic illnesses. An increasing number of patients with unexplained symptoms, lead her to expand her horizons into ME, and channel her energies into wanting to help these patients who were often misdiagnosed. In 2015, this led her to the Open Med Institute, where Dr. Dr. Chheda specialized in seeing patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Dr. Chheda's background in infectious diseases is particularly valuable in cases of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) which can be  related to the complex interplay of infection and the immune system. 
In 2017 Dr. Chheda and Dr. Kaufman together opened the Center for Complex Diseases. There is a focus on patients suffering from ME/CFS, Dysautonomia, Autoimmune Diseases, chronic infectious diseases, Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth Syndromes, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. She is a member of the ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center at the Stanford University Genome Technology Center and an active participant in several national clinician networks that focus on ME/CFS, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, and Autoimmune Disease.   

David Lyon Kaufman, MD (Internal Medicine)  

After earning a BFA from New York University School of the Arts in Filmmaking, an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University in Education, and his MD from New York Medical College, Dr. Kaufman completed his Internal Medicine Residency training at St. Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in New York City.  

He began his Internal Medicine practice in Greenwich Village in NYC just as the epidemic that came to be known as HIV/AIDS exploded.  With St. Vincent’s at the epicenter of this outbreak, he became deeply involved in the care of HIV positive patients and in the research aimed at discovering ways to treat both the opportunistic infections they were dying from and the virus that was causing the destruction of their immune systems.     

As HIV/AIDS became a treatable chronic infection, the practice expanded to include more primary care/general internal medicine patients ranging from 18-105 years old. He also became involved in the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of chronic, often difficult to diagnose and manage conditions, such as Lyme disease, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Viral diseases, vitamin and nutrient deficiencies.     

During the course of his 32 years in practice in NYC, he has been privileged to provide primary care to multiple family generations and to a widely diverse population of patients.  He was responsible for and coordinated the full range of their care, both in the office, in the hospital, and with other consulting physicians. 

In addition to his private medical practice, he was the Medical Director for one of the largest HIV Centers in the New York State, the Director for HIV Clinical Research at St. Vincent’s, and, for several years, Senior Vice President for Network Development at the 7 hospitals that made up the St. Vincent’s hospital system.   As an Attending physician at St. Vincent’s and a teacher of medical students and residents both at the hospital and at the medical school, he received many accolades including being honored by the entire Medical Staff.  Over his many years of practice he was consistently cited in the New York Magazine listing of Best Doctors in New York and has been recognized by the Castle Connolly listing of Top Doctors: New York Metro Area from 1998-2012.    

In 2012, he moved to California and joined Open Medicine Institute where he was the Medical Director of the Open Medicine Clinic, managing the staff and providing the majority of clinical services to patients. In 2017, he opened a new clinic, the Center for Complex Diseases, with a focus on patients suffering from ME/CFS, Dysautonomia, Autoimmune Diseases, and chronic infectious diseases including tick borne diseases, Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth Syndromes, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. He is a member of the ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center at the Stanford University Genome Technology Center and an active participant in several national clinician networks that focus on ME/CFS, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, and Autoimmune Disease.