Dr. Alan Greene of Danville is a hero. During the mid-1990s, as managed care began making doctor visits feel like assembly lines, the Mills-Peninsula pediatrician became dismayed. “I went from seeing three patients an hour to eight,” says the UCSF graduate, former chief resident at Children’s Hospital Oakland and current clinical professor of pediatrics at Stanford University.

After winning a grant from Silicon Graphics, Inc. in 1995, Dr. Greene was able to put cards in his exam rooms encouraging patients to ask questions that he, in turn, would answer in great detail on his own time. The idea went gangbusters as he began getting questions from folks who weren’t his patients. As the Internet became more and more accessible, so did Dr. Greene’s presence around the world when he launched what the AMA calls “the pioneer physician website,” DrGreene.com. It sees 440,000 unique visitors each month.

Author of Feeding Baby Green (Wiley, 2009) and Raising Baby Green (Wiley, 2007), the father of four is known for combining cutting-edge science with practical wisdom and holistics. In addition to answering questions regarding just about any imaginable childhood health topic, DrGreene.com offers insight into making changes that limit families’ exposure to harmful environmental dangers in everyday life.