David Wallis, MD, is a board-certified and fellowship-trained family and sports medicine physician who has been practicing in the South Bay area of Los Angeles for almost 20 years. He has brought his insights, expertise, and relationships from a career in private group practice and large hospital associations to form his own personalized medical practice at Beach Cities Medicine in Redondo Beach.

He graduated with honors magna cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a degree in biology before attending the University of California, San Diego, for medical school.

While he had originally planned to go into a surgical subspecialty such as orthopedics, he found his greatest “emotional paycheck” came from getting to know his patients over time and maintaining a holistic outlook on all aspects of patient care. He changed career paths and did his residency and internship in family medicine at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in primary care sports medicine. 

Professionally, Dr. Wallis has been fortunate to work with amazing colleagues and patients. During his training, he worked in urgent care settings and assisted in surgery. He bought the www.beachcitiesmedicine.com website all the way back in 2002 with the intention of starting a solo practice.

Dr. Wallis was soon invited to join the premier primary care group in the area. He was fortunate enough to learn much about the complexities of the healthcare system and a bit about business by working with them for almost a decade before they joined Torrance Memorial’s newly founded Physician Network. He founded the new office in Hermosa Beach and worked there for years until 2022 when he decided to reengage his original dream with Beach Cities Medicine.

In doing so, he is privileged to return from the volume-based, overloaded schedule of caring for thousands of patients to a “concierge” (aka “direct patient care,” or “membership”) model for the second half of his career. He is once again able to focus on treating each patient as if they were family, by taking the time to provide personalized medical care and communication to his patients as he had once dreamt.

Along his journey, Dr. Wallis has worked with athletes on the recreational, collegiate, and professional levels, including as a team physician for the Los Angeles Dodgers, LA Galaxy, Chivas USA, US National Soccer Team, and Ontario Reign hockey team. He also worked with All-American Heavyweights Boxing.

Dr. Wallis has worked as an expert reviewer for the Medical Board of California and consulted for pharmaceutical companies. He has published over a dozen academic journal articles and book chapters on a wide variety of topics and has served as a peer reviewer for academic medical journals.

Personally, Dr. Wallis is blessed to still be married to his amazing wife of over 25 years and to have four healthy kids. He loves the outdoors and staying active, and he has completed several marathons including Boston, triathlons including several Ironmans, and other endurance adventures such as the Paris-Brest-Paris 1200-km bicycle ride.

Dr. Wallis tries to practice what he preaches; however, he is also the first to admit he’s only human and that we need to give ourselves (and others) ample grace for our shortcomings. He dabbles in cars, travel, and woodworking when he gets a chance, but he is hopeless when it comes to golf – so that may be the one place you’ll be sure to never see him.

Whether working in a massive stadium or an intimate office, treating world-class athletes or the elderly in their last days, making an old-school home visit to a bed-bound patient, or welcoming patients to his beautiful new office, the doctor-patient relationship has been something Dr. Wallis has always cherished.

He is more excited than ever to come to work every day now, and he is especially driven by the new depth of the relationships and care he is able to provide here at Beach Cities Medicine.