Speakers Bureau
To request a PNHP speaker, please contact us online or at (312) 782-6006.
JOHN BOWER, MD, Mississippi is Chief of the Division of Nephrology at the University of Mississippi in Jackson, Mississippi. His practice includes many patients in the publicly financed and highly successful end-stage renal disease program. Dr. Bower has been a PNHP member for six years, and is the founder of PNHP’s Mississippi chapter. He brought a single-payer resolution before the the state medical society, and is active in speaking and writing editorials and letters on the need for universal access to health care.
OLVEEN CARRASQUILLO, MD, MPH, New York City, is a Puerto Rican born physician, raised in the Bronx. He is Assistant Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and co-director of the General Medicine Fellowship Program. His research includes minority health, health insurance, access to care, and managed care. Carrasquillo is frequently called upon by the Latino media. He has studied access to care among Latino elders and Medicare Managed Care in Washington Heights. Dr. Carrasquillo is a member of the Advisory Committee of the National Hispanic Medical Association. At Columbia he also serves on the Internal Medicine Residency Admissions Committee and is active in minority recruitment. He is a practicing internist with patients in the predominantly Latino community of Washington Heights.
ELINOR CHRISTIANSEN, MD, Colorado, is the past President of the American Medical Women’s Association, and has been a member since 1955 when she earned her MD from Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (now known as MCP-HU). Her diverse medical career has involved a private practice in general practice in Ohio, maternal and child health in the inner city clinics of Denver, CO and School Health for Denver Public Schools, college health at Colorado Women’s College for 2 years followed by 18 years at University of Denver Student Health Service where she was a staff physician and also medical director the last 9 years. She was also part of the clinical faculty in Family Medicine at University of Colorado School of Medicine and Medical Director and staff physician at Columbine Family Health Center. Since retiring her special interest has been how to improve access to medical care. The goal of universal access to quality health care has become her passion. In 1998 she traveled with a group of AMWA physicians to Norway and Finland to learn about their universal health care systems. Dr. Christiansen served AMWA as Chairperson of the Universal Access Subcommittee and was elected in November 2000 as President-Elect of AMWA.
LINDA FARLEY, MD, Wisconsin, is Assistant Professor Emeritus in the Department of Family Medicine, University of Wisconsin. Semi-retired, she practices at the Madison Community Health Center and supervises medical students in the Salvation Army homeless clinic. Dr. Farley is the co-founder (with her husband, Dr. Eugene Farley) of PNHP’s Wisconsin chapter, and is a frequent lecturer and media spokesperson for universal access to health care. Dr. Farley received the “Physician of the Year” award for her region by the Wisconsin Medical Society.
CLAUDIA FEGAN, MD, Chicago, (Immediate Past-President) is the Medical Director of Outpatient Care at Provident Hospital on the South Side of Chicago. She is the coordinator of the Illinois PNHP chapter’s Speaker’s Bureau, and has lectured extensively to both medical and community audiences on health care reform in the U.S. and Canada. She is a co-author of “Universal Healthcare: What the United States Can Learn from Canada” (The New Press, 1999, $14.95).
OLIVER FEIN, MD, New York, is Professor of Clinical Medicine and Clinical Public Health at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, where he serves as Associate Dean of Network Affairs. His work has focused on health system delivery reform. He was Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow during 1993-1994, when he worked as a legislative assistant for Senate Democratic Majority Leader, George Mitchell. Dr. Fein has been concerned with access to health care for vulnerable populations and the role of the Academic Health Center. He spent 17 years at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center developing ambulatory care practices. He is Chair of the NY Chapter of PNHP and Immediate Past Chair of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association.
JERRY FRANKEL, MD, Dallas, is a urologist in private practice in McKinney, Texas. He is a leader in the development of less-invasive surgical techniques in his field. Dr. Frankel is a longtime member of PNHP. He ran for Congress in 1996 against House Republican Dick Armey. Dr. Frankel has published numerous articles and letters on single-payer national health care and appeared on the local affiliates of ABC, NBC, PBS, and NPR. He has spoken at many churches, synagogues, and civic organizations throughout the metroplex. Dr. Frankel is on the Board of Directors of Common Cause of Texas, and actively supports numerous organizations which strive for social justice.
DAVID HIMMELSTEIN, MD, Boston, (Co-Editor, PNHP Newsletter) Dr. Himmelstein practices and teaches primary care internal medicine at the Cambridge Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he serves as the Chief of the Division of Social and Community Medicne, and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard. He is a co-founder of PNHP and one of two National Coordinators for the first five years of the organization. Dr. Himmelstein co-authored PNHP’s original proposal, its long-term care proposal, and its proposal for financing a national health program. His research focuses on problems in access to care, administrative waste, and the advantages of a national health program.
MARTHA LIVINGSTON, PhD, New York, is an Associate Professor of Health and Society at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury, where she teaches and researches U.S. health care, comparative health systems, international health, health policy, social determinants to health, medical ethics and women’s health. She is a member of the Journal of Public Health Policy editorial board. She has spoken at academic and professional conferences, universities, nursing schools, diverse agencies and community groups on the topic of health care reform. Dr Livingston lived and studied for several years in the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada, has researched and written on the Canadian Health System, and was a recipient of the Canadian Embassy’s Canadian Studies Research Grant.
DON MCCANNE, MD, California, (Senior Health Policy Fellow) Dr. McCanne is a family physician in San Clemente, California. For three decades, Dr. McCanne has allotted one-half of his practice hours to indigent patients. He has been cited by the San Clemente City Council as being “…outspoken, especially when it involves the elderly and underprivileged, because he believes that the ability to pay should not be the major criterion for receiving health care.” Dr. McCanne was a tireless supporter of Proposition 186, the California single-payer initiative. He has written extensively in the lay press on single payer and patient-oriented health care, often using the concept of “Universal Medicare” as a model for single payer that the public can understand and support. He has elected to dedicate the remainder of his productive years to full-time activism on behalf of the single-payer cause.
RUDOLPH J. MUELLER, MD, New York, is board certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at SUNY in Buffalo, and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. In 2001 his first book was published concerning healthcare in America and titled As Sick As It Gets. He has also written articles that have appeared in The Annals, JAMA and other medical journals. Dr. Mueller has appeared on numerous radio and television programs including ABC News’ Primetime Thursday, Democracy Now and NPR. He is a two time silver medalist in the AAU Wrestling Nationals and recently completed two triathlons. He shares a medical practice with wife, Dr. Diane Mueller, and they have five children.
DAN O‘CONNELL, PhD, New York, has been a family physician in the Bronx since 1991. He practices at Montefiore Family Health Center and teaches Family Medicine residents in Montefiore’s Social Medicine program. He has worked on universal health care issues since 1986, and has been on the Executive Board of NYC PNHP since 1995.
ALEC PRUCHNICKI, MD, New York, is Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Geriatrics, Mount Sinai Medical Center. He has a Masters of Philosophy from the Graduate Center of the City of New York and an MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has ten years experience in the field of geriatrics in a variety of outpatient and in-patient settings. He has done research primarily in the field of Alzheimer’s disease. He has taught at UCLA Extension, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, and Beth Abraham Hospital, Bronx, NY.
DEB RICHTER, MD, Vermont, has been active in PNHP for seven years, and practices in Montpelier, Vermont. She is a former President of PNHP. She has spoken extensively to both community and medical groups, is a frequent spokesperson in the print, TV, and radio media, and is active in coalition building on the need for universal access to health care. She was recently recognized by the Buffalo News as an upcoming “local leaders in 2010”. Dr. Richter’s experience caring for the uninsured and knowledge of the Canadian system are a welcome addition to PNHP’s Speakers’ Bureau.
JEFFREY SCAVRON, MD, Boston, (Past PNHP President) is a practicing internist and the Medical Director of the Brightwood Health Center, a community health center in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University. Dr. Scavron is a founding member of PNHP, and Chair of the western Massachusetts chapter. He is actively building coalitions for health care reform in Massachusetts.
GORDON SCHIFF, MD, Gordon Schiff is currently Associate Director of the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He was Professor of Medicine at Rush University and senior attending physician at Cook County Hospital where he worked for more than 30 years as Director of Clinical Quality Research and Improvement for the Department of Medicine, and during the 1990’s director Cook County’s large General Medical Clinic for nearly a decade. His was PI and Director of AHRQ-funded Rush-Cook County Developmental Center for Research in Patient Safety (DCERPS, Diagnosis Errors and Evaluation Research (DEER) Project, whose activities and recommendations are summarized in a chapter in the AHRQ Advances in Patient Safety monograph (on AHRQ website). He is Clinical Director of the recently awarded TOP-MED (Tools for Optimizing Prescribing, Monitoring and Education) CERT (Center for Education and Research in Therapeutics) based at the UIC College of Pharmacy.
Dr Schiff has published numerous patient safety and medication prescribing improving articles in Annals of Int Med, JAMA, Arch Intern Med, Medical Care, Am J Health System Pharm. He is editor of Getting Results: Reliably Communicating and Acting on Critical Test Results published by Joint Commission Resources in 2006, and author of the section on Diagnostic Error in the forthcoming WHO monograph Current Issues in Patient Safety: A Global Perspective published the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety. He is a member of the editorial Boards of Medical Care, Journal of Public Health Policy, and the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. He is recipient of the 2005 Institute of Medicine Chicago (IOMC) patient safety leader of the year award, the Institute for Safe Medical Practices (ISMP) 2006 Lifetime Achievement award, and in 2006 was selected by Modern Healthcare as one of the top “30 people likely to shape health care in the years and decades ahead.”
Dr. Schiff is a founding member and past president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), author of the PNHP JAMA paper on quality health care reform, and is guest editor the October 2008 special issue of Medical Care devoted to the topic of health insurance in the U.S.
VICTOR W. SIDEL, MD, New York City, is a graduate of Princeton University with honors in physics and of Harvard Medical School with honors in biophysics. After training in internal medicine and in biophysics at Harvard Medical School and at the National Heart Institute in Bethesda, from 1964 to 1969 he headed the Community Medicine Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital and studied epidemiology and biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
From 1969 to 1984 Dr. Sidel was chair of the Department of Social Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center and Professor of Community Health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and in 1984 he was appointed Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine at Montefiore and Einstein. In his work in the Bronx he has been concerned with service, teaching, and research in community health. He has served as President of the American Public Health Association and of the Public Health Association of New York City, and as a member of the Board of Directors of Physicians for a National Health Program. Dr. Sidel is also deeply involved in international health work.
Dr. Sidel was one of the founders of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) in 1961 and was its President in 1987-88. In 1980 he was one of the founders of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the recipient of the 1985 Nobel Prize for Peace, and was its President from 1993 to 1998. He has spoken and published widely on the economic, social, environmental and health consequences of the arms race, on the risks posed by the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and on the diversion of resources, the curtailment of human rights, and other risks entailed in the responses to the threat of bioterrorism. Dr. Sidel is co-editor with Dr. Barry Levy of War and Public Health (updated paperbound edition published by the American Public Health Association in 2000) and of Terrorism and Public Health (published by Oxford University Press in 2003).
TIMOTHY SULLIVAN, MD, New York, is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at New York Medical College and Service Chief, Services for the Mentally Ill at Saint Vincents Catholic Medical Center of New York. He has worked in both academic and medical centers and community health agencies. His work in health care reform, through PNHP, grew naturally out of his abiding professional and moral concern for fairness and excellence in the provision of health services to all persons in need.
WALTER TSOU, MD, MPH, Philadelphia, Tsou was appointed Health Commissioner of Philadelphia in April 2000, and recently finished a term of service with the city. Prior to his appointment, he was Deputy Director for Personal Health Services and Medical Director of the Montgomery County Health Department from 1991-2000. He was formally Clinical Director in the Division of Ambulatory Health Services for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. He has extensive experience in public health and currently serves on the Executive Board of the American Public Health Association and the National Board of Physicians for a National Health Program. In Philadelphia he has served on the boards and committees of the Maternity Care Coalition, the Philadelphia HIV Commission, Bridging the Gaps, the Asian American Health Care Network, and the United Way of southeast Pennsylvania. He is a Contributing Editor of Physician’s News Digest and the Past Chair of the Section of Public Health at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. He was listed in the July 94 issue of Business Philadelphia as “One of 100 People to Watch” and in Marquis’s Who’s Who in America. His MD is from the University of Pennsylvania and his MPH from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health where he was the recipient of the John C. Hume Award for academic excellence.
STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER, MD, MPH, Boston, (Co-Editor, PNHP Newsletter) Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard and co-director of the Harvard Medical School General Internal Medicine Fellowship program. She worked in 1990-91 as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation health policy fellow at the Institute of Medicine and the U.S. Congress. Dr. Woolhandler is a frequent speaker and has written extensively on health policy. A co-founder of PNHP and current Board member, she co-edits PNHP’s Newsletter and is a principal author of PNHP articles published in the JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Woolhandler is also co-author of the PNHP slide show and chartbook.
QUENTIN YOUNG, MD, Chicago, (National Coordinator) Dr. Young is a practicing internist in Hyde Park, a Clinical Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at the University of Illinois Medical Center and Senior Attending Physician at Michael Reese Hospital. He graduated Northwestern Medical School and did his residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. During the 1970s and early 1980s, he served as Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at Cook County, where he helped establish the Department of Occupational Medicine. He has also been an American Medical Association member since 1952.
In addition to his distinguished career as a physician, Dr. Young has been a leader in public health policy and medical and social justice issues. In 1998, he had the special distinction of serving as President of the American Public Health Association and in 1997 was inducted as a Master of the American College of Physicians. In 1980, Dr.Young founded the Chicago based Health & Medicine Policy Research Group, of which he is currently Chairman.