Both born and educated in Mumbai, India, Drs. Jayashree and Vinod Jivrajka pursued medical careers before making their way to the United States, where they would each leave a lasting mark on American healthcare. Vinod began medical school at age 17 and came to the U.S. to work at hospitals in New Jersey and Kentucky, before eventually settling in Southern California after attending a conference in Los Angeles and falling in love with the region. He completed a Fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, where he also served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine, laying the foundation for a distinguished career as an interventional cardiologist. Jayashree, a dedicated internist, built her own practice in the Los Angeles area, sharing Vinod’s deep commitment to patient-centered care.

The entrepreneur in Vinod drove him to think beyond the exam room. He founded AppleCare Medical Enterprises in 1996. Under his leadership as President and CEO for more than 20 years, AppleCare Medical Group grew from 500 members in 1996 to over 100,000 in 2016, with more than 400 primary care physicians and 450 specialists under contract. He also founded Episource LLC, a healthcare technology company that became one of the nation’s largest platforms for risk adjustment coding and analytics. Throughout it all, Jayashree remained a steadfast partner, anchoring the family’s medical mission with her work in internal medicine and her shared passion for expanding access to care. The Jivrajka Family Foundation, founded in 2024, reflects the couple’s lifelong commitment to medicine and service.

In a landmark act of philanthropy, Drs. Jayashree and Vinod Jivrajka, proud parents of three UCLA alumni, pledged $2 million to establish the Jivrajka Family Foundation Chair in the Division of Cardiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, with a focus on cardiovascular disease prevention in South Asian and other high-risk communities.

As physicians trained in India who built their careers in America, the couple described the gift as a full-circle moment, investing in the next generation of clinicians and scientists working to prevent the very diseases they have spent their lives treating. The gift was announced in February 2026.