Northern New England PNHP Remote Summer Internship 2024

The Vermont and New Hampshire chapters are excited to have a new volunteer coming on board for our Northern New England PNHP Summer Internship for students in the health professions—Henk Goorhuis, M.D., of Maine AllCare—so we finally match our aspirational name.

Due to our recruitment methods and the logistics of when students are available, our interns are usually medical students who have finished their first year of medical school. However, we enthusiastically welcome students who have been accepted to medical school but don’t start until next fall, as well as other health professions students, and students of public health and health administration.

• Find out more about our internship here.
• Click here to support the internship program with a financial donation.

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NNE Internship Student Testimonials

Medical student India Claflin describes her experience as an intern with the PNHP Northern New England 2021 summer internship program.

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Chapter activities

The League of Women Voters of Vermont invited VT PNHP past president Dr. Marvin Malek to give a presentation on the Privatization of Medicare at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier. VT PNHP cosponsored this event along with Vermont Health Care for All, Vermont State Employees Association, and Vermont Workers Center. This Feb. 6, 2023, event was recorded by ORCA Media and is available to view below.

Dr. Malek will address the same topic in person again at the Barre Area Senior Center on March 30, 2023 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., but with a shorter presentation and more time for questions and discussion.

Dr. Malek spoke to the SNaHP Chapter at Louisiana State University on February 23, 2023 at the request of some of our former interns.  The topic they chose:

• “Is there any way to control health care costs without skimping on care?”

Medical students interested in attending SNaHP events that are available by videoconference should reach out to Lori Clark, national organizer in our Chicago office: lori@pnhp.org

VT PNHP is reaching out to meet with our congressional delegation. If you are a VT PNHP member, please let us know at vermont@pnhp.org if you would like to receive notices of when those meetings are scheduled.

Please also let us know if you are interested in volunteering to …

• Help protect Medicare;
• Improve and expand Medicare;
• Educate future doctors about health care policy and advocacy

… by sending an email to vermont@pnhp.org, or to the national office at info@pnhp.org.

For more information on Medicare Direct Contracting and REACH, visit ProtectMedicare.net.

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Resolution supporting a single payer, universal publicly-funded health care system, endorsed by the Vermont Medical Society on November 7, 2020

• Click here to read the resolution.
• Click here to read the press release.
• For inquiries regarding the resolution in support of a single payer, national health plan passed by the Vermont Medical Society, please contact Jane Katz Field, M.D. (jane.katz.field@gmail.com)

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Sample resolutions supporting single payer universal health care and the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act

• Links to three sample resolutions that included both H.R. 1384 (Medicare for All) and H.R. 6906 (Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act):
  • New Orleans
  • Knoxville, Tenn.
  • Red Bank, N.J.

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Town resolution in support of Medicare for All, passed in Putney, Vt.

BE IT RESOLVED that the town of Putney hereby endorses federal legislation which will provide universal, comprehensive health coverage with zero cost sharing for all of our community residents during this crisis, such as the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Acts, and beyond, such as the Medicare-for-All Acts of 2019; and be it further

RESOLVED that the town of Putney, VT calls on Senator Sanders and Leahy and Representative Welch to work vigorously toward the immediate enactment of this, or similar legislation, thus assuring health care coverage as a basic human right for all Americans.

• Read the full resolution HERE

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Press release endorsed by VT-PNHP with four allies in health care advocacy, denouncing Vermont’s monopoly ACO, OneCare, and calling on the state to end the contract, or at least not renew it in 2021

• Click here to read the press release.
• Click here to read the fact sheet.

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Board of Directors

• President: Betty Keller, M.D., bjkellermd@gmail.com
• Vice President: Jane Katz Field, M.D., jane.katz.field@gmail.com
• Treasurer: Paul Millman
• Secretary: Ted Cody, M.D., tscody@vermontel.net
• At Large: Marvin Malek, M.D., M.P.H., mmalek66@gmail.com

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Recent activity of Vermont Physicians for a National Health Program

• Northern New England PNHP Summer ‘22 Internship: This internship was extremely successful in its third year as an online program, with 13 interns. Our chapter, along with Granite State PNHP, is expecting at least 10 interns for 2023, but could take a couple more, so we continue to fundraise for additional stipends for the students. In addition to our NNE speakers and teachers, going virtual opened up our capacity to allow medical students to interview Drs. Adam Gaffney, Ed Weisbart, Steve Kemble, Danielle Martin, and other experts from the U.S. and Canada, while still allowing discussions among themselves. In the past four summers, we have supervised interns from Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Oregon, North Carolina (in medical school in Alabama), Vermont, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts, Georgia, Kansas (in medical school in Nebraska), Kentucky, Arizona, and Texas. Donations for intern stipends are gratefully accepted. Please send checks stating “NNE PNHP Summer Internship” in the memo line to the national office, or use the PNHP donate button and indicate “NNE PNHP Summer Internship” in the “In honor/memoriam” section.
• In addition to speaking to their medical school classmates and to undergraduates at their universities, interns have given Single Payer 101 talks, and a talk on Why the Free Market Cannot Save our Health Care System, online in OPS Office Hours.
• We have recordings of many of the sessions. Please let us know if you are interested in viewing some, or if you might be able to assist in the project of making them accessible.
• Our chapter is collaborating with other health care reform activists in the state to oppose the ACO OneCare Vermont and privatization of Medicare, and to support global hospital budgets and recruitment and retention of primary care health care workers.
• We have been meeting with elected officials or their legislative aides for health care, and for candidates for U.S. House and U.S. Senate, to express our support for single-payer health care and to offer ourselves as resources for health care reform.
• Chapter Vice President Dr. Jane Katz Field was successful in getting a resolution supporting single payer on her town meeting ballot in March 2021, and it passed overwhelmingly.
• Dr. Katz Field also led a 16-month effort engaging the Vermont Medical Society to support a resolution endorsing a single-payer national health program, which passed by an overwhelming majority at the VMS Annual Meeting on November 7, 2020. This is the second state medical society to pass a resolution in support of a single-payer national health program, and the first since Hawaii did so in 2009.

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Media Contacts

Betty Keller, M.D.
Phone: (802) 274-8180
Email: bjkellermd@gmail.com

Dr. Betty Keller trained at the University of Vermont College of Medicine (now Larner), and completed her residency at the University of Utah Department of Family and Preventive Medicine.  She continued for one year as an adjunct faculty member while receiving additional obstetrical training and developing curriculum and logistics for University of Utah health professions students training in rural underserved areas, before returning to Vermont.

Her first-hand experience with the challenges facing families trying to advocate for adults with mental illness to receive insurance coverage for necessary care; her experience in rural health as a provider, a patient, and a family member; and her spiritual drive for health and justice for all have led her to explore health disparities and what more needs to be done to reduce disparities, in addition to achieving a publicly-funded health care system.

She is the current president of the Vermont chapter of PNHP; serves as chair of the Education and Advocacy Work Group for One Payer States; and facilitates meetings for the national League of Women Voters’ Health Care Reform Network.

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Marvin Malek, M.D.
Phone: (802) 272-9271
Email: mmalek66@gmail.com

Dr. Malek received his medical training at SUNY Upstate in Syracuse, NY, residency training at Cook County Hospital, and has spent most of his career in community medicine, providing care to underserved populations. He is the recipient of a Kellogg Foundation grant which he used to to pursue advanced training in the field of health policy at Harvard School of Public Health.

He currently practices internal medicine at Central Vermont Hospital, where he provides medical consultation and intensive care to hospitalized patients.

Frustrated by the timidity of the legislation that was enacted in Vermont in 2006, he ran for Lieutenant Governor of Vermont that year and later for State Representative, hoping to work on the health care issue.

Marvin remains active on the issue of health reform. He has testified before the legislature and given talks around the state advocating for a more humane and affordable health care system.

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Deb Richter, M.D.
Phone: (802) 224-9037
Email: drdebvt@sover.net

Dr. Richter 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.

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Jason Kelley, M.D.
Email: jason.kelley@dartmouth.edu

Dr. Jason Kelley is an internist at the White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Vermont where he serves as chief of the hospital medicine division. He received his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, and did residencies at the Harlem Hospital Center/Columbia University and at the University of Vermont. He is a professor emeritus from the University of Vermont and is currently a visiting professor at Dartmouth Medical School. From 2001 through 2010 he served as vice chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Louisville and chief of medicine at the Louisville VA Medical Center. He joined PNHP in 1992 and served as the Vermont chapter president from 1994-1997.

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