Dr. Zwelling is a Special Assistant to the Senior Vice President of Business Affairs and a Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He was previously the Vice President for Research Administration at M. D. Anderson and is currently an active member in PNHP, The Metropolitan Organization, The Harris County Health Alliance, Doctors for Change and a member of the American Leadership Forum’s Med Class 2. He is a board certified internist and medical oncologist and a lab-based investigator. His primary interests in health policy are advancing the single payer system and improving access to life-saving clinical cancer trials.
Robert Funke, MD
East Tennessee, State of Franklin Chapter
Dr. Bob Funke is a family physician at Mountain Region Family Medicine in Kingsport, Tennessee, where he is a founding member and past president of the board of directors. He is also a member of the executive committee at Wellmont Holston Valley Medical Center. Dr. Funke received his medical degree from Tulane University and completed his residency at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem.
Raymond Feierabend, MD, FAAFP
East Tennessee, State of Franklin Chapter
Dr. Feierabend is professor and Director of Graduate Medical Education in the Department of Family Medicine at East Tennessee State University, Quillen College of Medicine. A native of Louisiana, he received his medical degree from Tulane University and completed his residency at Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina. He established a rural National Health Service Corps practice in Dungannon, Virginia, before moving to the Quillen College of Medicine in 1982.
In Memoriam: J. I. Hudson Jr., MD
Middle Tennessee Chapter
Dr. Hudson was instrumental in starting the Middle Tennessee chapter of PNHP. His medical career included private practice in pediatrics, associate professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Univ. School of Medicine, Associate Dean for Academic Medicine at the Univ. of Maryland School of Medicine, and associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Hospital Finance and Management. He participated in efforts to establish nation-wide networks for quality assurance for acute hospital care in The Netherlands and Peninsular Malaysia, and consulted on matters of health care quality with the U.S. Health Care Financing Agency, the Select Committee on Aging of U.S. Congress, and USAID-supported primary health care programs in West Africa and the Middle East. Dr. Hudson passed away in 2012.
James S. Powers, MD, AGSF
Middle Tennessee Chapter
Dr. Jim Powers is associate professor of medicine Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he is director of the Vanderbilt-Reynolds Geriatrics Education Center, director of the geriatric medicine residency program, and chief of geriatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Powers received his medical degree from the University of Rochester. He completed residencies at the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve and a fellowship through the US Public Health System.
Joseph A. Weinberg, MD
West Tennessee Chapter
Dr. Joe Weinberg, M.D. is a retired pediatric emergency medicine physician and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences. He was Director of Emergency Services at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, Memphis, Tennessee, and President of Pediatric Emergency Specialists, P.C. He has served on many local and state organizations related to emergency services and education. He believes that children should have access to appropriate health care regardless of their parents’ station in life or the whims of their parents’ employer. He is a long-time member of PNHP committed to the need to implement a universal, single payer health care system in the United States. Dr. Weinberg hopes that his experience in consulting on local political campaigns can help West Tennessee PNHP.
David Mirvis, MD
West Tennessee Chapter, TN Chapter Health Policy Adviser
Dr. David Mirvis will serve as the chapter’s health policy advisor. Dr. Mirvis received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in 1970, and subsequently trained in internal medicine and cardiology at the National Institutes of Health and at the University of Tennessee. He joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in 1975, where he currently is professor emeritus. At UT, he was the founder and director of the University’s Center for Health Services Research.
His other academic appointments include positions as adjunct professor in the Department of Public Health, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Senior Research Fellow in the Methodist LeBonheur Center for Health Economics at the University of Memphis.
Dr. Mirvis’ research interests include health care delivery processes and health policy as well as electrocardiography. He has published over 200 manuscripts and books on these topics.
Peg Hartig, PhD, FNP, APN
West Tennessee Chapter
Dr. Peg Hartig is a professor and chair of the department of primary care and public health. She has been a College of Nursing faculty member since 1987.
Dr. Hartig has practiced as a family nurse practitioner since 1977 in a variety of primary care clinics, an endocrinology specialty clinic, a nursing home and a disease management service. She also provides health care services and monitors the quality of nurse practitioner services provided at the Bobbitt Health Station, the health clinic at Memphis International Airport.
In addition to conducting quality improvement research and teaching related content in the graduate program, Dr. Hartig has written and spoken to many groups about faculty evaluation activities and development of evidence-based practice. She is a member of the Academic Nursing Center Special Interest Group and faculty development committee of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties.
Joe Blythe, MD, FCCP
West Tennessee Chapter
Dr. Joe Blythe received his medical degree from the University of Mississippi and completed his postgraduate training at the University of Tennessee with a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in pulmonary diseases. He practiced in that specialty in Memphis until 2007, then became board-certified in palliative medicine and is currently practicing in that speciality. He is a fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians and remains certified in that field. Dr. Blythe became interested in the work of Physicians for a National Health Program by witnessing the inefficiencies and shortcomings of our health care system in his practice.
Roger S. LaBonte
LaBonte, MD, FACP - President, West Tennessee Chapter
Dr. Roger LaBonte practices part time as a hospitalist at Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian, Mississippi. He holds a volunteer appointment as a clinical associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), where he actively participates in the education of medical students and integrated programs with other medical disciplines.
Dr. LaBonte served 20 years in the US Navy and retired as a Master Chief Petty Officer. While in the Navy, he attended the University of Nebraska, where he received a BS in medical science. He received his medical degree from UTHSC. He completed his internal medicine residency at UTHSC and Baptist Memorial Hospital. Board-certified in internal medicine with a certificate of added qualification in geriatric medicine, he is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and a distinguished fellow of the American College of Medical Quality.
David Keely, MD
Dr. David Keely is president of Health Care for All-South Carolina. He is semi-retired as a public health policy educator and physician epidemiologist with Primary Care Medicine and Public Health Synergy, his part-time consulting business. He grew up in Philadelphia and obtained his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and his medical degree from Wake Forest University. He did his family medicine residency at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and later he did the MPH program at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health. He has practiced family medicine for more than 30 years in multiple settings: in private practice, at a community health center, and as part of a health department. David was the full-time, three-county, public health district director for South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control for eight years. He also served in the National Health Service Corps for two years along the way.
David Ball, RN
David Ball serves as the South Carolina chapter’s liaison with the national office. He received his Bachelor of Science in nursing from the University of Florida. He did an internship at the Gainesville VA Medical Center (SICU) and an externship at Johns Hopkins (Leukemia). He holds a degree in management from Antioch University and a master’s in health administration from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). During his 20-plus years in nursing, he has practiced in critical care, emergency medicine, med/surg and federal occupational health. He is currently completing Air War College as a Reserve officer in the Air Force where he holds the rank of lieutenant colonel. His most recent deployment (Jan-May 2012) was as director of operations for aeromedical evacuation at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.