Dr. Laurel Gamm is trained in family medicine and has worked as both a family medicine primary care doctor and more recently in the emergency department in rural Minnesota (New Ulm). She is a long-time PNHP member and has been involved in the single-payer movement in MN since the early 1990s. Starting this fall, Laurel is making a career change and has taken a job with Health Care for the Homeless in St. Paul. She will be splitting her time between New Ulm and St. Paul. She is a past co-chair of PNHP-Minnesota.
Inge De Becker, MD
Dr. Inge De Becker was born in Belgium. She trained there as a pediatric ophthalmologist, and then practiced for the next 25 years in Canada. She came to the US about 5 years ago, and she has been practicing at the U of MN in the pediatric ophthalmology department. Inge’s personal experience working in and out of a single-payer system will prove invaluable in her new role. As she says, being a doctor and a patient in our system makes her repeatedly, “just shake my head”. She is a past co-chair of PNHP-Minnesota.
Tim Lambert, DO
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)
John Cavacece, DO
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.
Rachel Nardin, MD
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.
Jim Recht, MD
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.
Deborah Schumann, MD
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.
Eric Naumburg, MD, MPH
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.
Elmore F. Rigamer, MD, MPA
Elmore F. Rigamer, MD, MPA, is currently Medical Director for Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans where he currently directs several disaster relief programs for victims of the Katrina hurricane disaster. Rigamer received his training in psychiatry at The New York Hospital- Cornell University an Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He received his MPA from Harvard University.
Prior to joining Catholic Charities, Dr. Rigamer served the US Department of State as Medical Director advising the Secretary of State on international health issues while overseeing the health care of Foreign Service diplomats and their families. He also served the US Department of State as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Medical Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Mental Health, Director of Mental Health Services, and Regional Psychiatrist for Europe, the Soviet Union, and South Asia. Dr. Rigamer has also held positions with Kaiser Permanente Health Maintenance Organization and the Ochsner Clinic as well as served as a Peace Corps Volunteer Physician in Monrovia, Liberia.
Jess Fiedorowicz, MD
Dr. Fiedorowicz is a board-certified psychiatrist and clinical investigator.
He is a graduate of Marquette University and obtained and M.D.with Honors in Research from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He then completed a transitional year internship at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee, WI followed by a psychiatry residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he served as a chief resident. He concluded a fellowship in the clinical neurobiology at the University of Iowa, where he has also received a master’s degree in clinical investigation. His work focuses on excess mortality in mental illness with a focus on suicide and vascular disease.
Chris Stack, MD
Dr. Stack is on the Steering Committee of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan. Dr. Stack graduated from Stanford University and went on to receive an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 1979. He attended Indiana University Medical School where he specialized in orthopedics. Dr. Stack served in the Vietnam War from 1964-67 and is a decorated Navy Veteran. He retired from practice in 2004.
Jonathan D. Walker, MD
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 a clinical professor at a 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.