Coming soon
Maryland PNHP
Website: md.pnhp.org
E-mail: hchrmaryland@gmail.com
Health Care is a Human Right Maryland
Website: hchrmd.org
E-mail: brittany@hchrmd.org
Eric Naumburg, M.D., M.P.H.
(443) 562-6562
HCHRMaryland@gmail.com
Dr. Eric Naumburg is co-chair of the Maryland chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program and works as an advocate for a national single-payer health care system. For more than a decade he taught pediatrics at the University of Maryland Medical School. He remains a diplomate of the American Board of Pediatrics. He obtained his medical degree from Mt. Sinai Medical School in New York City and his masters in public health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. He is on the steering committee of Healthcare is a Human Right Maryland, which he help found.
Margaret Flowers, M.D.
(312) 782-6006
mdpnhp@gmail.com
Dr. Flowers is a Maryland pediatrician with experience as a hospitalist at a rural hospital and in private practice. She is currently working on single-payer health care reform full-time. In addition to her activity as co-chair of the Maryland chapter and national board advisor for PNHP, Dr. Flowers is on the board of Healthcare-Now! and on the steering committee of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care. Dr. Flowers obtained her medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and did her residency at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
Deborah Schumann, M.D.
(301) 229-6084
dschumannmd@gmail.com
Dr. Schumann received a B.A. in chemistry from Smith College and an M.D. from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. After internship and residency she practiced ophthalmology for 25 years in various practice settings including private, group, Kaiser Permanente and volunteer positions. She has been a member of PNHP since its founding in 1987 and since retiring from practice she has been an active advocate for reform of the U.S. health care system. Currently, Dr. Schumann is active in Health Care NOW of Maryland as well as Physicians for a National Health Program. She is a multi-instrumentalist musician and lives in Bethesda with her coonhound Ellie.
Washington, D.C. Chapter Chair: Dr. Robert Zarr
Robert Zarr, M.D.
(202) 550-1740
rlzarr@yahoo.com
Dr. Robert Zarr is a board-certified pediatrician at Unity Health Care in Washington, DC, where he cares for a low-income and immigrant population. He is president of Physicians for a National Health Program.
Dr. Zarr is a past president of the DC Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and he holds adjunct professorships at Children’s National Medical Center and George Washington University. He also co-directs the Washington, DC chapter of PNHP. He is “physician champion” of DC Park Rx, a community health initiative to prescribe nature to patients and families and encourage time in one of 350 parks and green spaces in Washington, DC.
Dr. Zarr is fluent and literate in Spanish and has worked in the U.S. and abroad with Spanish-speaking populations. He is active in Washington, DC, in a variety of quality improvement initiatives including asthma management, injury prevention, literacy promotion, breastfeeding awareness, youth advocacy, tuberculosis prevention, and compliance with early and periodic screening, diagnostic and treatment standards.
Dr. Zarr received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine and completed his pediatric residency at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. He also has a master’s degree in public health, specializing in international health, from the University of Texas School of Public Health.
Harvey Fernbach, M.D.
(301) 345-1919
hfernbachmd@aol.com
Dr. Fernbach is a board certified Psychiatrist. He recieved his training at Yale University, and the State University of New York. He was a Clinical Associate at the National Institute of Mental Health and serves on the Board of Directors of the Washington Psychiatric Society.
David Rabin, M.D.
(202) 687-1608
Rabind@georgetown.edu
David Rabin is a Research Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University. He also directs the Division of Community Health Care Studies activities in Community Medicine and Public Health Research, including studies on long-term care, etiology of chronic diseases, prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, he has been prominently involved in the development of a multi-disciplinary Global Health Education Program at GU. He received his education at Washington University and at Harvard.
E. James Lieberman, MD
(301) 983-1237
ejl@gwu.edu
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, George Washington University School of Medicine, retired from private practice in Washington, DC, 2006. Commander (Ret.) USPHS; served 7 years at NIMH; last postion: Chief. Center for Child and Family Mental Health. Former Board Member, National Council on Family Relations. Distinguished Life Fellow, American Psychiatric Association. Fellow, American Public Health Association. Active in patients’ rights issues in family planning, sex education, and end-of-life care. Editor, Mental Health: The Public Health Challenge (APHA); co-author Like It Is: A Teen Sex Guide.
PNHP Ohio
Dr. Johnathon Ross: drjohnross@ameritech.net
Single-Payer Action Network, Ohio
Website: http://www.spanohio.org
E-mail: span@spanohio.org
Johnathon Ross, M.D., MPH
(419) 536-3879
drjohnross@ameritech.net
Dr. Johnathon Ross is a past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, a national health reform group with over 17,000 members (PNHP). He is a graduate of Cornell University and received his medical degree in 1975 from the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo. In addition to his medical degree, he has a master’s degree in health policy and administration from the School of Public Health of the University of Michigan. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Toledo and currently practices and teaches general internal medicine at St Vincent Mercy Medical Center, a 500 bed center city teaching hospital in Toledo, Ohio. He has served as a family physician in a small rural community in upstate New York as a member of the National Health Service Corps. He has served as medical director for several organizations including: a local industrial medicine concern, the local visiting nurse service, a charitable HMO established by his Catholic hospital system and currently a center city adult medical clinic. He has served as chairman of the department of Internal Medicine at St. Vincent. He has been a member of the executive committee of medical staff of St Vincent, a board member of its PHO, and as chairman of several committees of the hospital, the HMO and the PHO focused on quality improvement. He has served as a member of the Ohio State Medical Board and helped to establish the educational requirements and scope of practice for licensed physician assistants in Ohio. His experience inside the health insurance industry convinced him of the logic and need for a national health insurance program.
Alice Faryna, M.D. | 614, 249-2667 | alicyna@yahoo.com
Dr. Faryna is certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. She has 40 years of experience including private practice, Neighborhood health centers, the VA. Associate professsor of Medicine at the Wright State University School of Medicine (now the Boonshoft School of Medicine) for 14 years, and 8 years as Medical Director for Medicare Part B, Ohio and West Virginia.
Andrei Vermont, M.D.
216.491.7004
vermonta@yahoo.com
Dr. Vermont is a Radiologist who completed his post graduate training at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution. He now practices in the Cleveland Clinic and has taught on the faculty of SUNY University Hospital, University of North Carolina, Michigan State University, and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Mary Jo Groves, M.D., FAAFP
937-215-6940
mjgroves1@gmail.com
Dr. Groves received her training at Ohio University, and Ohio State University, with clinical honors in internal medicine, OB/GYN, pediatrics and psychiatry. She is Board certified in family practice, and a Fellow, American Academy of Family Practice. She currently is the Director of Community Mercy Urgent Care in Springfield.
Thomas Pretlow, M.D.
216.368.8700
tgp3@cwcru.edu
Dr. Pretlow is Professor in the Departments of Pathology, Oncology, Urology, and Environmental Health Sciences at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Since becoming Professor in the Departments of Pathology and Biochemistry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dr. Pretlow has spent a year or more on the faculties at Harvard, Stanford, and Case Western Reserve. He was Visiting Professor for a year at the Dana Farber Cancer Center at Harvard.
PNHP-WV Statewide Chapter
Email: pnhp.wv@gmail.com
PNHP-WV Chapter Contact
Dan Doyle, M.D., Senior Organizer
(304) 573-1798
doyledan348@gmail.com
PNPH-WV Chapter Website
pnhpwestvirginia.org
This resolution was adopted unanimously by the West Virginia Academy of Family Physicians Board in April 2025, and was sent to the American Academy of Family Physicians for consideration at their October 2025 national conference.
Health Care for All NC (Raleigh)
Website: HealthCareforAllNC.org
Email: Pres@HealthCareforAllNC.org
Health Care Justice – NC (Charlotte)
Website: healthcarejusticenc.org
Email: HCJusticeNC@gmail.com
Health Care for All WNC (Asheville)
Website: healthcareforallwnc.wordpress.com
Facebook: Facebook.com/HealthCareforAllWNC
Email: hcfawnc@gmail.com
Email: pnhpgeorgia@gmail.com
Twitter: @PNHPGeorgia
Facebook: PNHP Georgia
Co-chaired by: Mindy Guo, M.D., M.P.H. and Toby Terwilliger, M.D.
Social Media/Communications Correspondent: Elizabeth McCord, M.D.
Founding Member: Henry Kahn, M.D.
The Steering Committee of the Georgia Chapter of PNHP includes physicians and other health care advocates. Each has their own story of how their social justice advocacy efforts led them to see that expanded and improved Medicare for All is the most cost effective and just pathway to universal health insurance coverage in the U.S.
Jack Bernard
Jack Bernard was the first Director of Health Planning for the State of Georgia. He then entered the private sector and served as a senior level executive with national health care firms including Humana, NME (now Tenet), Premier, and MedAssets. Jack has also been a local activist, serving on the Jasper (GA) County Board of Commissioners from 2005 through 2012. He has been on numerous other committees and boards, including the Jasper County Board of Health and the Fayette County Board of Health, where he is now Chair. He is also on various state and national health boards. He has been a mentor/counselor with SCORE (an SBA affiliate) since 2008, concentrating on the SCORE region for the Atlanta multi-county area south of I-20. He is an editorial writer having written over 1,250 columns specializing in health care, social, and political issues.
Mindy Guo, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Mindy Guo is a family medicine physician with Emory University and has lived in New Mexico, California, Missouri, and now Georgia. She completed residency training in 2021 as well as her Masters in Public Health in 2022. She is a fierce advocate for patients and for public health, and believes that access to health care is a right that must be established for all Americans.
Karen Hochman, M.D.
Dr. Karen Hochman is originally from Winnipeg, Canada where she grew up, attended medical school, completed residency training, and practiced full time child and adolescent psychiatry for three years before relocating to Georgia. She has lived and worked in Atlanta as a psychiatrist since 1999 and holds an appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Emory University School of Medicine. She has worked in a variety of practice settings including: Emory Healthcare, Grady Health Center, Georgia State University Counseling Center, and the Veterans Administration health system. She is a fierce advocate for single-payer health care with lived experience in both the U.S. and Canada as a physician and patient.
Henry Kahn, M.D.
Dr. Henry Kahn, an early chapter leader, is now a retired internal medicine physician, an Emeritus Professor at Emory University School of Medicine, and an adjunct faculty member at Morehouse School of Medicine and the Rollins School of Public Health. He moved to Atlanta to join the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (1972-1974), later returning to CDC as a full-time epidemiologist of chronic diseases (2001-2018). As a volunteer physician in 1973, he was Emory’s first faculty member appointed in primary care. He played a major role in developing the neighborhood health centers associated with Grady Hospital. He has been involved in social justice advocacy efforts since high school and was one of the founding members of PNHP national.
Kieran Kristensen, M.D.
Dr. Kieran Kristensen is a current Emergency Medicine resident at Emory as well as an Atlanta native. In training at Grady, Atlanta’s county hospital, he has seen the harms that our for-profit health care system leads to for Atlanta’s poor and underserved communities. It has only strengthened his belief that health care should be a public service, not a business.
Jay Mainthia, M.D. candidate
Jay Mainthia was born and raised in Smyrna, Georgia. He is a 4th year medical student at the Morehouse School of Medicine. He is dedicated to health justice, single-payer advocacy, and primary care.
Chris Masi, M.D. Ph.D.
Dr. Christopher Masi is a general internist who practices at Emory University, where he is a Professor of Medicine and Vice Chair of Quality and Clinical Effectiveness in the Department of Medicine. He has conducted research on social determinants of health and strategies to improve quality of care. He is eager to improve access to care for all populations and views a national health plan as the best way to achieve this goal.
Belinda McIntosh, M.D.
Dr. Belinda McIntosh is originally from Jamaica and immigrated to the U.S. as a child. She has lived in New York, Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Georgia. She completed residency training in psychiatry in 2003 and has worked in a variety of clinical settings including private practice, the Veterans Administration, and Student Health Services at Georgia Tech and Emory University, where she held an appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She is a staunch supporter of single-payer health care.
Elizabeth McCord, M.D.
Dr. Elizabeth McCord is originally from New Orleans, but has found her permanent home in Atlanta. She completed both her internal medicine / psychiatry residency and addiction psychiatry fellowship at Emory University. She is a proud advocate of U.S. health care reform through a single-payer system and supports other local advocacy groups that fight for human rights.
Maureen Miller, M.D. M.P.H.
Dr. Maureen Miller is a board-certified pathologist and epidemiologist. She moved to Atlanta to complete a clinical fellowship in blood banking and transfusion medicine with rotations at Emory University, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and Grady Memorial Hospital. As a medical student and resident at New York University, she was a member of PNHP-NY, Healthcare for the 99% at Occupy Wall Street, and the New York Doctors’ Coalition. She is currently working on a novel about the epidemic of physician suicide inspired by her studies of worker safety while studying at the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health. She believes health care is a human right, and health care workers cannot give humane care or care for themselves without nationalized health care.
Toby Terwilliger, M.D.
Dr. Toby Terwilliger is an Assistant Professor in Emory University School of Medicine’s Division of Hospital Medicine at Grady Memorial Hospital. Originally from upstate New York, Dr. Terwilliger completed his medical school coursework in New York City before moving to Newark, N.J. for residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. After residency, he and his wife moved to Atlanta for her sports medicine fellowship and fell in love with the city. Dr. Terwilliger first became involved in PNHP while caring for underserved patients at our nation’s oldest public hospital, Bellevue, in NYC, and has since worked in safety net hospitals, where the patients he treats have been victimized by the U.S. healthcare non-system for most of their lives. Dr. Terwilliger is currently in the Society of General Internal Medicine Leadership in Health Policy (LEAHP) scholars program, where he hopes to gain the knowledge and skills to advocate more effectively for an equitable, universal health care system.
Rita Valenti, R.N.
Rita Valenti is a Registered Nurse, now retired from Grady Health Systems after 28 years of service. She worked in Trauma, Surgical Intensive Care, and the Grady Infectious Diseases Clinic. Rita was elected to the Georgia State Legislature in 1990 after door-to-door campaigning with nurses and community activists. As part of Georgians for a Common Sense Health Plan, she introduced legislation for a single-payer system in Georgia in 1992. She is a founder and member of Project South and on the Board of Healthcare-NOW. She is active with National Nurses United and the Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective, and is a current advisor to Health Students Taking Action Together. She is a passionate fighter for health justice and Medicare for All.
Ben Williams, M.D. candidate
Ben Williams is a medical student at Emory University School of Medicine and founding president of the Emory SNaHP chapter. He is passionate about developing a robust single-payer health care system in the U.S.
Medical and health professional students represent the future of our movement! PNHP Florida has launched a student fund to support local members of Students for a National Health Program (SNaHP).
We will underwrite Fla. student participation in PNHP’s Northern New England Summer Internship program; help fund scholarships for the PNHP Annual Meeting and SNaHP Summit; and generally support new and established SNaHP chapters throughout the state.
Donate to the PNHP Florida Student Fund HERE!
Leonardo Alonso, D.O.
(904) 994-0857
rlalonso@comcast.net
I completed my medical school in 1989 at NOVA Southeastern and did a one-year osteopathic internship in Chicago upon graduation. I moved to Bakersfield, CA to complete my residency in Emergency Medicine at Kern Medical Center, then returned to Jacksonville, FL, my home state, with my new family, Alejandro and Gwendolyn. I was drawn to Emergency Medicine, partly for the immediacy of rapid results that impact people’s health but also by the legislated open door policy that we must treat everyone who enters our department regardless of their financial status. I began exploring health systems, became aware of PNHP, and have been a member for over 20 years. I was the director of the Emergency Department at Orange Park Medical Center and learnt much about how the for-profit hospital and physician contract groups operate.
My wife, Reagan, and I met in the Peace Corps in the early 1980’s (after college) where we served in Honduras. I am of Cuban descent and fluent in Spanish, which helps me better serve the Hispanic community locally. She is an RN and we both have volunteered for many years in medical missions on an annual basis to Honduras, plus at a local free clinic for the working uninsured called Volunteers in Medicine (Primary Care Clinic), where I was Chairman of the Board for several years. I am currently working with a team of Emergency Medicine physicians from UCLA trying to start our specialty in Honduras, where it is nonexistent. We are collaborating with the dean of the medical school in Tegucigalpa. I have also worked as a locums tenem physician in Vermont, West Virginia, Georgia, and Oregon, which has given me a better understanding of health care on a rural and national level.
I am excited about the formation of the Florida Chapter of PNHP and hope to be an active member.
Greg Silver, M.D.
(727) 712-3280
drsilver@drsilver.net
Dr. Silver is a solo, practicing family physician in Clearwater, Florida. He has been an active lecturer and consultant in the areas of healthcare reform, electronic medical records and the adoption of new medical technologies.
Howard A. Green, M.D., FACP, FAAD | 561-659-1510 | hag2@comcast.net
Dr Green received his education at George Washington University and The Boston University of Medicine. He did his post doctoral work at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and at Harvard Medical School.
Email us for information on local activists
Jim Mitchiner, M.D., M.P.H., FACEP
Dr. James Mitchiner is currently an attending emergency physician at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In addition, he has an academic appointment at the University of Michigan Medical School. He is Past President of the Michigan College of Emergency Physicians and has served in the American College of Emergency Physicians as the Chair of its State Legislative and Regulatory Committee, and as a member of the Task Force on Health Care and the Uninsured. A longtime single-payer advocate, he is active in Physicians for a National Health Program, which has 18,000 members nationwide. Dr. Mitchiner received his M.D. from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and received a master’s degree in health management and policy from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
John Cavacece, D.O. | cavacecj@trinity-health.org
John Cavacece has been a family physician, practicing full spectrum family medicine, for 18 years. He received his D.O. degree from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1986. He has been Associate Director of the Grand Rapids Family Medicine Residency since 1996. John spent ten years as an Air Force physician as both a staff physician and faculty at Air Force residencies before taking his present position in Grand Rapids. A Society for Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) member since 1993, John is currently the Chair of the Group on Family, a subgroup of STFM. His interests are primarily in behavioral medicine, teaching the concepts of Relationship-Centered Care to residents. He has been a member of Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP) since 2002.
Tim Lambert, D.O.
(231) 935-8016
TLAMBERT@mhc.net
Dr. Lambert is a family physician and faculty member of the Munson Medical Center Family Practice Residency Program in Traverse City. He has worked in the community with the migrant health clinic, the Grand Traverse Band Native American health clinic and most recently with the Grand Traverse Regional Health Care Coalition Board (Vice-President 2004-2006)
Medicare for All Indiana
(formerly Hoosiers for Commonsense Health Plan)
Website: MedicareForAllIndiana.org
E-mail: medicareforallindiana@gmail.
Northwest Indiana Medicare for All
Website: nwimedicare4all.org
Email: nwimedicare4all@gmail.com
Rob Stone, M.D., FAAHPM, Bloomington, Ind.
812.333.8085
Dr. Rob Stone is the director and founder of Medicare for All Indiana (formerly known as Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan) and the Indiana state coordinator for Physicians for a National Health Program. He has been a member of PNHP’s board of directors and now is a Board Advisor. Dr. Stone practiced emergency medicine at Indiana University Health Bloomington Hospital from 1983 to 2011. He now serves as the medical director of outpatient palliative care at the hospital. He lectures to medical and lay audiences on health care reform throughout Indiana and beyond.
Born and raised in Evansville, Ind., he graduated from Dartmouth College Phi Beta Kappa, and obtained his medical degree from the University of Colorado Medical School.
Jonathan D. Walker, MD
260 436 2181
Jonwalker22@gmail.com
Dr. Walker attended medical school at the University of Cincinnati, and did his residency at Highland General Hospital, Oakland, CA and Jewish Hospital, Cincinnati, OH. He completed his residency in Ophthalmology at Ohio State University.
He is active in clinical practice in the above two specialties; also clinical professor at local medical school, and active with local free clinic projects using telemedicine to identify patients with diabetic retinopathy before severe damage develops. Dr Walker is also involved with projects in developing countries including Nicaragua, Honduras, and Fiji.
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Rob Kilpatrick
Exec. Dir., North Alabama Healthcare For All
Cell: 256-486-1277
E-mail: rob2020@mac.com
Rob Kilpatrick is the Executive Director of North Alabama Healthcare for All, a chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. He is a retired United States Marine Corps officer who also had a “second career” in the aerospace industry. His two careers took him to many countries around the world where he observed, first hand, a variety of healthcare systems. His personal volunteer activities, over the years, have put him in contact with many americans who have suffered due to lack of access to the high quality healthcare available to only some of our citizens. In comparing the United States healthcare system to those he observed in countries far less wealthy, he has become increasingly disenchanted with the United States system and convinced that our great nation can do better. Now, in retirement, he is devoting his full attention to advocating for a more humane and cost effective system of healthcare for all persons in the United States.
J Walden Retan, M.D.
Phone: 205-266-4928
E-mail: HealthCareForEveryone@charter.net
Dr. Retan was educated at Hamilton College, MIT, and the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. His post graduate training was in the hospitals of the Harvard Medical system. He came to Birmingham as faculty at University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB). He entered private practice of internal medicine and, later, geriatrics in the 1960’s.
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John D. Bower, M.D.
601.829.2115
jbower564@aol.com
Dr. John Bower 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.