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The Center's staff includes caring physicians, psychologists, and technologists who specialize in sleep disorders. Patients are evaluated by a team of professionals which may include specialists in pulmonary and internal medicine, psychology, otolaryngology (ear, nose, and throat), neurology and cardiology.
 Peter Fotinakes, M.D.
Medical Director, Sleep Disorders Center
Diplomate, American Board of Neurology
To me, sleep is a new frontier. Medical science once considered sleep nothing more than a passive period with little influence on the body. A short fifty years ago, sleep researchers began exploring the nature of sleep and its effect on general health. They not only discovered primary sleep disorders, but also found that many daytime illnesses had their roots in sleep. Everyone experiences a sleep problem sometime in his or her life. Luckily, most problems are nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Specialists in sleep medicine treat sleep disorders that significantly impact mental and physical health. Some sleep disorders produce greater disability than their daytime counterparts, and some are life threatening. Despite critical discoveries linking sleep to mental and physical health, the very purpose of sleep remains a mystery. After exclusively practicing sleep medicine for more than a decade, I am still excited by the opportunity to explore new areas, deliver new treatments and help people with unique problems.
Over the years, my career expanded and evolved, but my roots remained firmly planted in Orange County. After receiving my bachelor's degree in Chemistry and Biology at Chapman University, I traveled the short distance to the University of California at Irvine for medical school. In 1985, I returned to the city of Orange to complete my residency in Neurology through UCI Medical Center and my sub-specialty training in Sleep Medicine. After training, I entered private practice for ten years before deciding to enter academic medicine in 1994. From that time on, Sleep Medicine has become my primary focus and passion. As Medical Director of UCI and associate professor, my goal was to educate future physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. After retiring from academics, it was my good fortune to become a member of the Sleep Disorders Center at St. Joseph Hospital, where an experienced team of physicians and technologists deliver comprehensive Sleep Medicine in a state-of-the-art facility.
Medicine tends to follow me home. I first met my wife over test tubes in a chemistry research lab in college thirty years ago. After college, we shared the unique experience of medical school, residency and medical practice. She is now a gynecologist, specializing in menopause management and women's healthcare. There are five physicians in my immediate family, which means that "doctorese" is the primary language spoken at family gatherings. This doesn't mean I don't escape medicine during the wee hours of the morning to spin my bike down the road, paddle my kayak through the back bay or tempt a fish from the ocean onto my barbecue grill. As a member of the dedicated team of professionals at the Sleep Disorders Center at St. Joseph Hospital, I hope to help you sleep better.
 Sarah S. Mosko, Ph.D.
Administrative Director, Sleep Disorders Center
Diplomate, American Board of Sleep Medicine
My interest in treating sleep disorders dates back to 1979 when I finished a postdoctoral training fellowship at UC San Diego in the Department of Neuroscience and joined the faculty at UC Irvine. There, I worked full time in the sleep center until establishing the Sleep Disorders Center at St. Joseph Hospital in 1990. Early on, I had studied the mammalian brain as I earned a Ph.D. in psychology at Princeton University in 1976. I had done a lot of animal research and wanted to do something more directly related to helping people. Sleep disorders medicine allowed me to blend my interest in how the brain works with my desire to become a clinician. While at UC Irvine I trained both in sleep disorders medicine and in clinical psychology and became an accredited sleep specialist in 1981 and a licensed psychologist in 1988. Although I have been treating sleep disorders patients for well over 20 years, I have been fortunate to be able to conduct research simultaneously on the brain and sleep disorders and contribute over 40 original articles to the scientific literature.
Today, however, all my effort goes into treating people with sleep disorders. Being a sleep specialist is incredibly rewarding because sleep problems are usually so treatable. This means my clinical practice is overall quite upbeat - patients are happy with the results, so I am, too. Our Sleep Disorders Center at St. Joseph Hospital is absolutely first rate and allows me to be proud every day.
On a personal level, I think of myself as a very serious person because I think a lot about "big" issues like human and animal rights, world peace and taking care of the environment. However, my philosophy about every day living is to find as much humor in life's challenges and disappointments as possible. I also strive to let my belief that everyone has something to teach me, guide my interactions with others. My free time is focused largely on my family and my passion for ballroom dancing.and yes, I do from time to time have trouble sleeping. Life is pretty complicated for most of us these days, and it is perfectly normal to suffer sleep disturbance on an occasional basis.
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