Biography

Dr. Sager has practiced in Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Medicine in Santa Barbara since 2007 and is the Director of the Cottage Pulmonary Hypertension Center. He was born in South Africa and immigrated to the United States in 1997. He received his medical degree from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa where he was the recipient of the University Council Scholarship award. He completed his Medical Internship, Medical Residency and Chief Medical Residency at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, where he was awarded the Key Pharmaceutical award for outstanding graduate Medical Resident and was awarded the Benjamin A. Gouley, MD award for outstanding Chief Medical Resident. He completed his Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship training at the University of Pennsylvania and was awarded the Will Rogers Institute Research Fellowship award for excellence in Research. He remained at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center as Assistant Professor of Medicine and Associate Medical Director of the Lung Transplantation program. Additionally, he received a Masters degree in Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of Pennsylvania. He was awarded the American College of Chest Physicians Young Leadership award.

He currently is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. He is active in the House Staff training program at Cottage Hospital and was nominated for the Physician of the year award by Cottage Hospital. He won the Cottage Hospital Excellence in Teaching award and serves as a member of the multi-specialty peer review committee at Cottage Hospital. 

 

Dr. Sager is board certified in internal medicine, Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Medicine. He is a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physiciansand a Member of Pulmonary Hypertension Clinicians and Researchers for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. He serves as a committee member of the California Thoracic Society and is an active member of the American Thoracic Society, Santa Barbara County Medical Society, California Medical Association, and American College of Physicians.

 

He is the Medical Director and founder of the Cottage Pulmonary Hypertension Center and a nationally-recognized expert on the management and treatment of pulmonary hypertension and advanced lung disease. He is a frequent speaker on pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary vascular diseases. He is the Principal Investigator of several national and international trials related to pulmonary hypertension that are currently being conducted at Cottage Hospital under his directorship. The doctor's many publications include journal articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, Clinics in Chest Medicine, Respiratory Care, Transplantation, Chest, Respiratory Research, Journal of Infection, American Journal of Transplantation, Respiration, The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation and Medical Clinics of North America. 

 

Dr. Sager enjoys exercising to stay healthy and his greatest passion in life is his wife, Dana and their two children, Dylan and Taryn.