The Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors has selected Dr. John Allen Walker as the county's new public health officer.

Walker, the medical director of National Health Plans, will replace Dr. Alvaro Garza, who resigned last year to take a job with the state Department of Health Services. Walker will begin his new job on Nov. 13.

Walker has worked as medical director of National Health Plans since 1995. Before that, he worked for two years for the Centers for Disease Control and ran an internal medicine practice.

Walker earned his medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C., and his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in New York City.

Reprinted by permission of Modesto Bee.