Dr. Richard Sonner is a native of Indiana who was raised in Southern California. He got his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Harvey Mudd College of the Claremont Colleges, where he was an All-American water polo goalie. During his first year after college he did full-time plant biology research at Harvey Mudd College while getting a master's degree in criminal justice at Claremont Graduate School.
He then went to medical school at UCLA. After medical school he did two medical residencies, the first in pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and the second in emergency medicine at UCLA and Olive View-UCLA medical centers. In the three years between these three-year residencies, he mainly did pediatric and neonatal critical care transport at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles (and other contract hospitals), but he also did some office pediatrics and served as a pediatric hospitalist.
Since finishing his emergency medicine residency over 24 years ago, he has been an attending physician in the emergency department, where he works full-time, and a clinical faculty member in the Ronald Reagan-UCLA Medical Center Emergency Department, where he teaches residents five shifts a month.
In addition to his clinical duties, he served as the director of pediatric emergency services at Torrance Memorial for over 20 years and served 12 years in public office as a three-time elected member of the South Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education.
He is the father of four young-adult children, and enjoys doing outdoor activities and adventure travel with them. He also enjoys traveling on his own, as well as cooking, yardwork, swimming, and a lot of reading. He aspires to write books and swim with orcas.
