Contact Information
Email: pnhpgeorgia@gmail.com
Twitter: @PNHPGeorgia
Facebook: PNHP Georgia
Steering Committee
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.