Nearly one year after Dr. Wilma Wooten, San Diego’s previous public health officer, retired, the county appointed her replacement, naming Dr. Sayone Thihalolipavan to the post Monday afternoon.
Wooten made the physician her deputy in 2015, recruiting him from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where he worked on a range of public health issues from tobacco control and diabetes prevention to vital statistics and infectious disease control.
Over the past decade in San Diego, he has participated in responding to all of the public health incidents that have occurred in San Diego County, including the hepatitis A outbreak and the local Zika virus response in 2017, wound botulism in 2018, public vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic and the dangers of fentanyl in 2024.
Along the way, Thihalolipavan, who many call “Dr. T,” climbed through the ranks, becoming the county’s Public Health Medical Officer.
The county conducted a nationwide search to replace Wooten, but ended up choosing an internal candidate.
Kimberly Giardina, director of the county’s Health and Human Services Agency which includes the public health department that Thihalolipavan now heads, said that no candidate had a better mix of technical expertise and effective communication style.
“He’s incredibly familiar with the operations of both public health services and medical care services,” Giardina said. “I think his knowledge of both those areas will help him be very effective.”
As the top public health official in county government, Thihalolipavan, with Public Health Services Director Elizabeth Hernandez, will run a department with 730 employees and a $236 million budget. It’s a department that has existed since 1869 when a county historical indicates that the local board of trustees “established a Board of Health” at a time when the spread of smallpox was the biggest concern.
The department includes an epidemiology and immunization services branch, which receives reports from local labs and physicians regarding new infectious disease cases. It also has an HIV/STD and hepatitis branch that works to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, a department of tuberculosis control and units that focus on maternal and child health and public health preparedness.
While the public health director oversees these departments’ day-to-day operations, the public health officer provides top-level medical oversight and shoulders the responsibility of issuing quarantine or isolation orders, or even, as state law makes clear, declaring a local emergency if doing so “may be necessary to protect and preserve the public health.”
A big part of the job is communicating with the public, especially during times of extreme concern, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Giardina said Thihalolipavan has proven his communications skills when speaking in public about many of the issues he has been assigned to handle over the past decade.
“I think he does bring clarity in the way that he communicates,” Giardina said. “I feel that he really has the wide array of skills that are necessary to be a good public health officer.”
Thihalolipavan was not available Monday afternoon to discuss his new appointment in depth.
“I am humbled and honored to have been trusted with this opportunity,” Thihalolipavan said in a county-issued statement Monday. “I’m truly looking forward to continuing to serve San Diegans from our more populated coastline to our rural areas, along with my amazing county colleagues and the broader public health community.”
Dr. John Bradley, medical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Rady Children’s Hospital, said he has worked with Thihalolipavan on pediatric tuberculosis programs and during the COVID-19 pandemic and found him to be exceedingly collaborative.
“He listens to people, and even if he doesn’t agree with you, you know he’s taken your thoughts into consideration for a decision, along with all the rest of them,” Bradley said. “I’m looking forward to working with him.”
Dr. Eric McDonald, who handled multiple jobs in public health before his retirement in 2024, shared similar sentiments.
“He is a comionate and very bright physician who is an excellent communicator and deeply understands systems that advance community health and the public good,” McDonald said.
Thihalolipavan replaces Dr. Ankita Kadakia, who served as interim public health officer after Wooten’s departure. Kadakia will return to her previous position as deputy public health officer.
“Kudos to Dr. Kadakia who has done an outstanding job as the interm,” McDonald said.
Thihalolipavan holds a master’s degree in public health from Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and earned his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine.
