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George Fehrenbacher M.D. grew up all over the United States as his father was a career active duty military officer. After receiving a bachelor’s degree at University of California - Berkeley in the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology, he was invited to stay on in the PhD program. A change of interest led him to leave the program early (with a Master’s degree in Microbiology), and attended University of California - Davis (UC Davis) medical school. Residency at Kaiser Hospital Oakland was followed by a general cardiology fellowship at UC Davis. Interventional cardiology fellowship in Milwaukee at the University of Wisconsin was followed by a faculty position before moving to Roseville and joining Roseville Cardiology Medical Associates.
His research initially started with biochemistry, cellular physiology and cardiovascular mechanisms of disease. He then was involved in many clinical research trials with clot-busting agents for heart attacks, and multiple blood thinning medications used after coronary stents.
At Sutter Roseville Medical Center he was elected Chief of Staff, served many terms as Chairman of Medicine and as Chairman of Medical education. He is the medical director for Cardiology and the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory.
In the California State legislature, he wrote a bill that piloted interventional cardiology procedures at hospitals without cardiac surgery on site. He led Sutter Roseville as a pilot hospital with the significantly best mortality outcomes of all the pilot hospitals and significantly better than well over 90% of all hospitals in California that have cardiac surgery. He was the writing chairman of the summary paper to the California Department of Public Health. This changed the way heart attacks are cared for in many regions of California. He helped establish redirection of the ambulance system in the Sacramento Sierra Valley EMS (Placer and Nevada counties) to bring heart attack and cardiac arrest patients to Sutter Roseville and other specially designated centers. He served many years as the chairman of the heart attack quality improvement committee for the Emergency Medical System agency.
After transforming Sutter Roseville Medical Center into a regional tertiary referral center for the foothills and Placer/Nevada counties for cardiac arrest and heart attack patients, his interests continue to be how to best care for these patients using coronary stents, heart assist devices, pacemakers and automatic internal cardiac defibrillators.
In his current project (2020-2023), he has been asked by Sutter health to lead a management strategy in the Sacramento Valley amongst all Sutter health hospitals in the alignment of all cardiovascular physicians with the hospitals to achieve the best outcomes. Many outcomes will be measured and improved upon.
Dr. Fehrenbacher and his wife have lived in Roseville for 30 years. His wife is a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for foster children and they have supported Sacramento Children’s Home and Child Advocates of Placer County. Internationally they support Doctors Without Borders and Compassion International. They enjoy traveling, hiking, and skiing.
