James Hood MD
Dr. Hood brings over 25 years of expertise in surgery and hospital care to the East San Francisco Bay Area. He earned his BS in Chemical Engineering, graduating cum laude from Auburn University, followed by his MD from UAB Medical School. His surgical training includes a general surgery internship and residency at LSU Medical School, and a cardiothoracic surgery residency at Jefferson Medical College.
Dr. Hood grew up on a small farm in Alabama and worked his way through college as a “roughneck” in the oil fields of Texas and Oklahoma, where he realized his dream was to find a job with air conditioning. He met his wife—smart, beautiful, and a dermatologist—while at LSU, where he completed his general surgery residency and she trained at Tulane University. The couple spent three years in Philadelphia for Dr. Hood’s cardiac surgery residency, where their twin boys were born, before moving to San Francisco in 2000 for a cardiac surgery position at KPSF. He raised his family in Lafayette’s Happy Valley, commuting to San Francisco for work, while his wife practiced dermatology locally.
Dr. Hood retired from cardiac and thoracic surgery in 2022 and founded Private Medicine Lafayette, a concierge medical care and minor surgery center. He completed a Physician Retraining and Reentry in Primary Care at UCSD in 2021-22 and has been recognized as a San Francisco Magazine/Castle Connolly Top Doctor for eight consecutive years (2015–2022).
Dr. Hood enjoys golf, hiking, and “purposeful exercise,” including maintaining his one-acre landscape and walking to work with Char Char, the practice’s beloved Great Pyrenees comfort pet.
