PNHP

Joshua Freeman, MD

Joshua Freeman, MD

Family Medicine

Dr. Josh Freeman is a retired family physician living in Tucson, AZ. He is professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center, where he previously served as department chair, and is clinical professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Arizona. Dr. Freeman recently stepped down as associate editor of the journal Family Medicine. He has served on the board of trustees of Roosevelt University in Chicago.

Dr. Freeman is author of the book, Health, Medicine and Justice: Designing a Fair and Equitable Healthcare System, and of the blog Medicine and Social Justice.

David Ansell, MD, MPH, FACP

Internal Medicine

Dr. David Ansell is the Senior Vice President for Community Health Equity at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

He is an internal medicine physician, trained at Cook County Hospital in the late 1970s, where he spent 17 years holding a number of positions including chief of general medicine/primary care. After leaving County, he spent 10 years as chair of the department of internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, located in one of the highest hardship communities in Chicago. He has been particularly involved in health equity work, bringing attention to higher rates of breast cancer mortality for African-American women in Chicago. In 2007 he co-founded the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Taskforce, a not-for-profit that focuses on eliminating the racial disparities in breast cancer mortality.

He is the author of numerous papers and book chapters on health disparities. In 2011 he published an acclaimed memoir based on his experiences as a doctor in Chicago, County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospital. His most recent book, The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills, was released by the University of Chicago Press in 2017.

Dr. Ansell is a graduate of SUNY Upstate Medical University and received his Masters of Public Health from the University of Illinois School of Public Health.

Peter Steinglass, MD, DLFAPA, FAAAP

Psychiatry

Dr. Peter Steinglass is president emeritus and director of the Ackerman Center for Substance Abuse and the Family. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, he is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He is also a member of the Physicians for a National Health Program New York Metro chapter’s board of directors.

Dr. Steinglass has received many honors for his work in academic psychiatry as well as for his clinical and research collaborations with medical and mental health institutions, including the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy’s Cumulative Contribution to Family Therapy Research Award, and the Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Research Award from the American Family Therapy Academy. He is also a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Fellow of the American Academy for Addiction Psychiatry.

Most recently, Dr. Steinglass was the recipient of the 2009 Mona Mansell Award from New York’s Freedom Institute, signifying his contributions to the substance abuse treatment field. His research on alcoholism and on chronic medical illness as they affect family life has provided vital information for the clinical community. Dr. Steinglass has written more than 90 articles, book chapters, and books on these subjects.

Gordon Schiff, MD

Internal Medicine

Dr. Gordon (Gordy) Schiff is a practicing general internist; associate director of Brigham and Women’s Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice (Quality); safety director for the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Center for Primary Care; and associate professor of Medicine at HMS. He also serves as the course director of the HMS Masters Program in Quality and Safety Special Topics course.

Dr. Schiff worked for more than three decades at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, where he directed the General Medicine Clinic, led the Department of Medicine Quality program, and chaired the institution’s P&T (Formulary) Committee, in addition to serving as professor of medicine at Rush Medical College.

Dr. Schiff has published widely in the areas of medication and diagnosis safety, having authored 250 papers and chapters, including several papers detailing conservative prescribing and diagnosis practices as ways to transform current unsafe and costly use of drugs and diagnostic testing. He chairs the editorial board of Medical Care and serves on editorial boards of the Journal of Public Health Policy and BMJ Quality and Safety in Healthcare.

A longtime advocate for Medicare for All, Dr. Schiff is a founding member and past president of PNHP.

Elizabeth R. Rosenthal, MD

Dermatology

Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal is a retired dermatologist residing in Westchester County, NY, where she practiced for 31 years. For several years, she served on the volunteer faculty of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she supervised residents and students in the pediatric dermatology clinic. Dr. Rosenthal earned her medical degree from New York University Medical School, and completed her postgraduate training in Syracuse, Detroit, and Boston. Dr. Rosenthal is a member of the executive committee of the New York Metro chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Mary E. O’Brien, MD

Primary Care

Dr. Mary O’Brien has been a practicing primary care physician in New York City for the past 35 years – first as associate director of an urban emergency department for 10 years and now as a primary care physician at Columbia. She is double-boarded in internal medicine and emergency medicine. For several summers she has volunteered at a rural clinic in the Mississippi while the medical director takes vacation time. She currently precepts fourth-year medical students at Columbia in their primary care rotation. A member of the board of directors of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. O’Brien is also a member of the New York Metro chapter’s executive committee.

Donald E. Moore, MD, MPH

General Medicine

Dr. Donald Moore runs a full-time general medicine practice in Brooklyn and has distinguished himself through service to his community and his profession. He is also an attending physician at New York Methodist Hospital and teaches medicine students at Weill Cornell Medical College and nurse practitioner students at NYU and Hunter College. He is a board member of the New York Metro chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Dr. Moore has served as president of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine (AYAM) and president of the Medical Society of the County of Kings. He had received numerous awards including the Distinguished Alumni Service Award from AYAM and awards for teaching excellence from Weill Cornell. He has been recognized for his humanitarian efforts in health care delivery by the New York State Senate and U.S. Congress.

Adam Gaffney, MD, MPH

Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

Dr. Adam Gaffney. is an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Cambridge Health Alliance, a health policy researcher, and a writer and commentator on issues of medicine and policy.

His research focuses on national health care reform, health care equity, and disparities in lung health. Dr. Gaffney has authored or co-authored more than 60 journal articles, with first-author publications in such journals as the Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, JAMA Internal Medicine, Health Affairs, the American Journal of Public Health, and elsewhere. He is also the author of the book “To Heal Humankind: The Right to Health in History,” published in 2017 by Routledge.

A past-president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), Dr. Gaffney is also a frequent writer on matters of health care and policy, and has published articles in outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, New Republic, USA Today, and the Boston Globe. He is also a frequent media guest, and has appeared on NPR, MSNBC, Fox Business News, the BBC, and elsewhere.

Dr. Gaffney received his medical degree from New York University and his MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed his residency at the Columbia University Medical Center, where he served as chief resident, and his fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Sherif Emil, MD, CM, FRCSC, FACS, FAAP

Pediatric Surgery

Dr. Sherif Emil is the Mirella and Lino Saputo Foundation Chair in Pediatric Surgical Education and Patient and Family-Centered Care in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, where he also serves as associate chair for education in the Department of Pediatric Surgery. Since 2008, Dr. Emil has served as the director of the Harvey E. Beardmore Division of Pediatric Surgery at The Montreal Children’s Hospital. He is the founding director of Canada’s first multidisciplinary Chest Wall Anomalies Center at the Shriners Hospital for Children, Canada, and is the pediatric surgery specialty consultant for Mercy Ships International. Dr. Emil served as the founding chair of the Canadian Consortium for Research in Pediatric Surgery (CanCORPS) from 2018 to 2023. 

Dr. Emil was born in Cairo, Egypt, and grew up in several developing countries, where his parents practiced as physicians. He earned his medical degree from McGill University, and his surgical residency at Loma Linda University in California. After completing his pediatric surgery fellowship at McGill, he returned to California in 2001 to join the surgical faculty at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where he led the Division of Pediatric Surgery from 2005 to 2008. 

Dr. Emil has published more than 150 articles and chapters on pediatric surgery. In 2020, he published Clinical Pediatric Surgery: A Case-Based Interactive Approach. In 2012, Dr. Emil was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Governor General of Canada for his service to children around the world and his academic accomplishments in pediatric surgery. In 2023, he was awarded the Montreal Children’s Hospital Award of Excellence in Leadership, an award presented approximately once every decade to an exceptional leader.

Andrew D. Coates, MD, FACP

Internal Medicine

Dr. Andy Coates is a past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, chief of hospital medicine at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York, and an assistant professor of medicine and psychiatry at Albany Medical College. Board certified in internal medicine as well as hospice and palliative care medicine, Dr. Coates graduated from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Coates is a co-founder of the Capital District chapter of PNHP and founder of Single Payer New York. He previously served on the statewide executive board of the Public Employees Federation, AFL-CIO. He provides commentary on WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Claudia M. Fegan, MD, CHCQM, FACP

Internal Medicine

Dr. Claudia Fegan is chief medical officer of Cook County Health, where she provides executive oversight for the health system’s medical practices and health policy initiatives. Dr. Fegan also serves as national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, where she has appeared on national television and radio programs on behalf of the organization, and has testified before congressional committees on a wide range of health care issues. She has lectured extensively to both medical and community audiences on health care reform in the U.S. and Canada, and is a co-author of the book “Universal Healthcare: What the United States can Learn From the Canadian Experience” and a contributor to “10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care.”

Dr. Fegan is a past president and board member of the Chicago-based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group. In 2017, she received the Paul Cornely Award from the American Public Health Association, and in 2023 Becker’s Health Care named her one of 149 Black Health Leaders to Know. 

Dr. Fegan received her undergraduate degree from Fisk University and her medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine. She is a diplomate of both the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians.

Diljeet K. Singh, MD, DrPH

Integrative Gynecologic Oncology

Diljeet K. Singh is a women’s health advocate and an integrative gynecologic oncologist in clinical practice since 1999. Dr. Singh received her medical degree from Northwestern University and master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed an obstetrics and gynecology residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a gynecologic oncology fellowship at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. She completed her doctoral degree in public health on cost analysis at the University of Texas School of Public Health and an associate fellowship in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona. She currently serves as president of Physicians for a National Health Program.