Meet TCC’s Chief Executive Officer

Elisa Nicholas, MD, MSPH, Chief Executive Officer

Children and families who live in poverty are at risk of missing out on important primary and preventative care, but Dr. Elisa Nicholas, Chief Executive Officer and pediatrician of TCC Family Health  (TCC) works tirelessly to come up with creative and meaningful ways to make sure the children and families TCC serves receive the care they need to lead happier and healthier lives.

As a young girl, Elisa dreamed of changing the world.  Her lunch money always seemed to find its way to a cause she felt strongly about. She deeply admired her parents, both medical professionals and learned early on the importance of giving back. She chose medicine, specifically pediatrics as her calling and travelled across the world from Central America, Lebanon, Haiti and Africa, believing she was destined to work overseas. However, her wise mother pointed out that she could do the work she desired right here, close to home.

“Home is now how I see TCC. Home is how our patients see TCC. A medical home where our caring, multicultural staff is there for them, not only for their acute medical problems but there for the crises they may face in their lives, the diseases they are trying to control, the isolation new families sometimes face or lifestyles they are desperately trying to change.”

Dr. Nicholas’ passion and commitment to helping others has driven her career and the success of TCC for almost 30 years ago.  She took what was once a small, mostly volunteer-run clinic serving only children to an innovative and progressive federally qualified health center system of 13 health centers and 2 mobile medical clinics throughout greater Long Beach serving almost 40,000 patients in over 130,000 visits per year.

She has designed, led and overseen pioneering projects in the area of management of chronic diseases, such as asthma, diabetes, obesity, and most recently trauma, toxic stress and adverse childhood experiences.   She embraces and celebrates the strengths and resiliency in the ethnically diverse, multicultural community that TCC serves. With her guidance and expertise, TCC has become a contributor to the field of trauma informed care and resiliency building, and is a strong presence in Long Beach as an organizer and partner that strives for a comprehensive community response to health concerns, and as a local leader of innovative care for other clinics, communities and agencies on how to build trauma-informed and resiliency building capacities.

Dr. Nicholas received her Medical School Degree from UCLA School of Medicine and she completed her residency in Pediatrics from Yale University School of Medicine, Yale-New Haven Hospital. She completed her preventative medicine residency as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar Fellow at UCLA, and completed her Masters of Science in Public Health (MSPH) from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.  She is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at UC Irvine School of Medicine.

Meet TCC’s Executive Staff

Jina Lee Lawler, MSW, Chief Operating Officer

Ms. Lawler is responsible for all aspects of day-to-day TCC Operations, including services, program implementation, IT and facilities of the organization in accordance with the organization-approved policies, strategic plans, decisions and directives. Recently, she led the implementation and training of the EPIC Electronic Health Records system at TCC. She also has worked extensively with Mental Health America and Northeast Valley Health Corporation as a project leader to establish the Homeless Innovation Program and other resources for the homeless, including case management on mental and chronic illness. Prior to her position at TCC, she was the founding Executive Director of Moloka’i Ohana Health Care, Inc., a Federally Qualified Health Center in Hawaii. She has also worked at the American Academy of Pediatrics, providing technical assistance to pediatricians and other health professionals interested in increasing access to child health initiatives. In addition, her professional experience includes creating a thriving outpatient community health center while developing multiple social service programs for a multi-cultural population in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. Ms. Lawler’s educational background includes a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her License in Clinical Social Work in 1997, and has over 15 years of experience in health care systems, budgeting, program development, non-profit health care management, community development, and working with underinsured and insured populations both at the local and national level.

Maria Chandler, MD, MBA, Chief Medical Officer