Contact Information

Mass-Care

Website: http://www.masscare.org/

E-mail: info@masscare.org

Next Chapter Meeting (April 10, 2019)

Please join us — we’ll be discussing H.R. 1384 (the Medicare for All Act of 2019) and our current, historic moment in the struggle for universal health care.

Wednesday, April 10, 2019, 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Harvard Medical School (240 Longwood Ave.)

Building C, Cannon Room (114)

Speakers include Drs. Marcia Angell (former editor-in-chief, New England Journal of Medicine), Adam Gaffney (PNHP president), and Steffie Woolhandler (PNHP co-founder).

Please direct any questions to Dr. Alan Meyers.

Media Contacts

Jim Recht, M.D.

(617) 665-2671

jrecht@challiance.org

Dr. Recht is the past chair of the MA chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. He is a staff psychiatrist at Cambridge Hospital and an Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Rachel Nardin, M.D.

(617) 665-1017

rnardin@challiance.org

Dr. Rachel Nardin is chief of neurology at Cambridge Health Alliance, an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, and chair of the MA chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. She is active in educating others about single payer, gives frequent grand rounds and community talks, and appears frequently in the media.l.

Adam Gaffney, M.D.

info@pnhp.org

Dr. Adam Gaffney is a pulmonary and critical care physician and instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance. He is a national board member and president-elect of Physicians for a National Health Program and chair of PNHP’s Massachusetts chapter.

Dr. Gaffney is a lead co-author of PNHP’s most recent reform proposals for single-payer reform (AJPH 2016) and pharmaceutical system reform (BMJ 2018). He is a prolific writer and blogger and has been published by the Washington Post and the Guardian, among other outlets. His book, “To Heal Humankind: The Right to Health in History,” was published in 2017. He also appears in other media such as radio, podcasts, and television, and he presents regularly to medical audiences.

Gordon Schiff, M.D.

(617) 732-4814

gschiff@partners.org

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.

David Himmelstein, M.D.

(617) 665-1032

Dr. David Himmelstein is professor in the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College, adjunct clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has served as chief of the division of social and community medicine at Cambridge Hospital.

Dr. Himmelstein has authored or co-authored more than 100 journal articles and three books, including widely cited studies of medical bankruptcy and the high administrative costs of the U.S. health care system. His 1984 study of patient dumping led to the enactment of EMTALA, the law that banned that practice.

A co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Himmelstein co-edits PNHP’s newsletter and is a principal author of PNHP articles published in the JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine in conjunction with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler.

Dr. Himmelstein received his medical degree from Columbia University and completed internal medicine training at Highland Hospital/University of California San Francisco and a fellowship in general internal medicine at Harvard.

Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., MPH

(617) 665-1032

swoolhandler@challiance.org

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is a practicing primary care physician, professor in the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College, adjunct clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School, where she co-directed the general internal medicine fellowship program and practiced primary care internal medicine at Cambridge Hospital.

Dr. Woolhandler earned her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University; her medical degree from Louisiana State University; and her master’s degree from the University of California. She worked in 1990-1991 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, administrative overhead and the uninsured. She has authored more than 150 journal articles, reviews, chapters, and books on health policy. A co-founder and board member of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Woolhandler co-edits PNHP’s newsletter and is a principal author of PNHP articles published in the JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine in conjunction with Dr. David Himmelstein.

Pat Downs Berger, M.D.

(617) 566-6847

patberger@yahoo.com

Dr. Berger is the Co-Chair of Mass-Care, the Single Payer organization in MA sponsoring the Single Payer Health Care Trust bill (S 703). Dr. Berger is retired internist who worked for 14 years at the Harvard St. Neighborhood Health Center in Dorchester, MA, the Harvard Community Health Plan for two years, and then in private practice in Brookline for 9 years.

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