Additional speakers are available throughout the United States and Canada. For regional speakers, see separate pages for the Northeast, Midwest, South, and West.
To request a PNHP speaker, please contact us at info@pnhp.org or (312) 782-6006.
Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, FACP – internal medicine, New York/Boston
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is a practicing primary care physician, distinguished professor of public health and health policy in the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College, adjunct clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School, where she co-directed the general internal medicine fellowship program and practiced primary care internal medicine at Cambridge Hospital.
Dr. Woolhandler earned her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University; her medical degree from Louisiana State University; and her master’s degree from the University of California. She worked in 1990-1991 as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation health policy fellow at the Institute of Medicine and the U.S. Congress.
Dr. Woolhandler is a frequent speaker and has written extensively on health policy, administrative overhead and the uninsured. She has authored more than 150 journal articles, reviews, chapters, and books on health policy. A sample of Dr. Woolhandler’s grand rounds at the University of Southern California Keek School of Medicine is available here.
A co-founder and board member of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Woolhandler co-edits PNHP’s newsletter and is a principal author of PNHP articles published in the JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine in conjunction with Dr. David Himmelstein.
Walter H. Tsou, MD, MPH – internal medicine/public health, Philadelphia
Dr. Walter Tsou is a past president of the American Public Health Association and former health commissioner of Philadelphia. He is a founding member of the National Board of Public Health Examiners and a board adviser to Physicians for a National Health Program. An expert on health reform and health care financing, he frequently briefs members of Congress on health care issues.
Dr. Tsou is a contributing editor of Physician’s News Digest and Pennsylvania Medicine. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Public Health Recognition Award from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the Leadership Award from the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council, and the Broad Street Pump Award from Physicians for Social Responsibility. He was named Practitioner of the Year by the Philadelphia County Medical Society in 2001.
Dr. Tsou received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. He holds an honorary doctorate in medical sciences from Drexel University.
Claudia M. Fegan, MD, CHCQM, FACP – internal medicine, Chicago
Dr. Claudia Fegan is national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program. In her current and past leadership roles in PNHP 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 Canada” and a contributor to “10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care.”
Dr. Fegan is executive medical officer for the Cook County Health and Hospital System and chief medical officer at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. She is also president of the Chicago-based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group. In 2016, Modern Healthcare named Dr. Fegan one of “10 Minority Executives to Watch,” noting her achievements in the medical profession and her single-payer activism.
Dr. Fegan received her undergraduate degree from Fisk University and her medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine. She is also certified in health care quality and management and is a diplomate of the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians.
David U. Himmelstein, MD, FACP – internal medicine, New York/Boston
Dr. David Himmelstein is a distinguished professor of public health and health policy in the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College, adjunct clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has served as chief of the division of social and community medicine at Cambridge Hospital.
Dr. Himmelstein has authored or co-authored more than 100 journal articles and three books, including widely cited studies of medical bankruptcy and the high administrative costs of the U.S. health care system. His 1984 study of patient dumping led to the enactment of EMTALA, the law that banned that practice.
A co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Himmelstein co-edits PNHP’s newsletter and is a principal author of PNHP articles published in the JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine in conjunction with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler. A sample of Dr. Himmelstein’s grand rounds at the University of Southern California Keek School of Medicine is available here.
Dr. Himmelstein received his medical degree from Columbia University and completed internal medicine training at Highland Hospital/University of California San Francisco and a fellowship in general internal medicine at Harvard.
Diljeet K. Singh, MD, DrPH – gynecologic oncology, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Diljeet Singh is a gynecologic oncologist with the Mid-Atlantic Permanante Medical Group in Washington, DC. She recently relocated from Phoenix, AZ, where she was the program director of gynecologic oncology and the program director of Cancer Prevention and Integrative Medicine at the Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center in Gilbert, Arizona.
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 the Johns Hopkins 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 is a national board member of Physicians for a National Health Program.
Carol Paris, MD – psychiatry, Nashville
Dr. Carol Paris is the president of Physicians for a National Health Program. She is a recently retired psychiatrist who worked for more than 25 years in private practice, community mental health, prison psychiatry, and academia. In the course of her experience, much of which was in Maryland, she became an outspoken critic of the private-insurance-based U.S. health care system.
In May 2009, she and seven others stood up, one by one, at a U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing on health care reform chaired by Sen. Max Baucus to ask why there wasn’t a single advocate for single-payer health care on the 41-member panel. In an action that received national media attention, Baucus had all eight peaceful protesters, including Dr. Paris, arrested. (Charges were eventually reduced, requiring only community service.)
Dr. Paris subsequently toured the country as part of the “Mad as Hell Doctors” campaign for single payer, and spent a year as a consultant psychiatrist in New Zealand, where she experienced a single-payer system firsthand. She currently resides in Nashville, Tenn., where her primary interests include strategic activism, recruiting and mentoring medical students and early career physicians for leadership positions within PNHP, and building coalitions to strengthen the single-payer movement’s impact on the national health care debate. Dr. Paris obtained her medical degree from West Virginia University School of Medicine.
Robert L. Zarr, MD, MPH, FAAP – pediatrics, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Robert Zarr is a board-certified pediatrician at Unity Health Care in Washington, DC, where he cares for a low-income and immigrant population. He is the immediate past president of Physicians for a National Health Program.
Dr. Zarr is a past president of the DC Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and he holds adjunct professorships at Children’s National Medical Center and George Washington University. He also co-directs the Washington, DC chapter of PNHP. He is “physician champion” of DC Park Rx, a community health initiative to prescribe nature to patients and families and encourage time in one of 350 parks and green spaces in Washington, DC.
Dr. Zarr is fluent and literate in Spanish and has worked in the U.S. and abroad with Spanish-speaking populations. He is active in Washington, DC, in a variety of quality improvement initiatives including asthma management, injury prevention, literacy promotion, breastfeeding awareness, youth advocacy, tuberculosis prevention, and compliance with early and periodic screening, diagnostic and treatment standards.
Dr. Zarr received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine and completed his pediatric residency at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. He also has a master’s degree in public health, specializing in international health, from the University of Texas School of Public Health.
Susan Rogers, MD, FACP – internal medicine, Chicago
Dr. Susan Rogers, recently retired, is a volunteer attending hospitalist and internist at the John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. She previously was co-director of medical student programs for the Department of Medicine. She is also assistant professor of medicine at Rush University, where she is active on the committee of admissions, and assistant professor of medicine at Rosalind Franklin University. She has received numerous teaching awards from Stroger Hospital, Rush University, and Rosalind Franklin University. A sample of Dr. Rogers’ grand rounds at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign is available here.
Dr. Rogers received her medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and completed her residency at Cook County Hospital, where she served as chief resident. She is a national board member of Physicians for a National Health Program and a past co-president of Health Care for All Illinois. She previously served on the boards of the Near North Health Service Corp, a FQHC in Chicago, and Ancona School. Dr. Rogers is a member of the American College of Physicians, the Society of General Internal Medicine, and the National Medical Association.
Paul Y. Song, MD – radiation oncology, Los Angeles
Dr. Paul Song is a board-certified radiation oncologist, biotech executive, and health care reform activist.
He is a national board member of Physicians for a National Health Program and serves as co-chair for the Campaign for a Healthy California. He served as executive chairman of the 1.2 million-member Courage Campaign from 2013 to March 2016. He also served as the very first visiting fellow on health care policy in the California Department of Insurance for 2013.
Dr. Song is the chief medical officer of ATGen Global and Cynvenio Biosystems. He recently left the faculty at the Samuel Oschin Cancer Center at Cedars Sinai Medical Center and currently volunteers his time seeing Medicaid and uninsured patients at California Hospital.
He attended the University of Chicago where he graduated with honors and received his medical degree from George Washington University. He completed his residency in radiation oncology at University of Chicago Medical Center.
Dr. Song serves on the boards of People for the American Way, The Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, Liberty in North Korea, and The Eisner Pediatric and Family Medical Center.
Oliver T. Fein, MD, FACP – internal medicine, New York
Dr. Oliver Fein is professor of clinical medicine and clinical public health at Weill Cornell Medical College, where he serves as associate dean responsible for the Office of Affiliations and the Office of Global Health Education. He is a general internist and active in clinical practice.
Dr. Fein is a past president of Physicians for a National Health Program and chair of the New York Metro Chapter of PNHP. He is a past vice president of the American Public Health Association, where he served four years on the executive board.
Much of Dr. Fein’s work has focused on health system delivery reform and access to care for vulnerable populations. His recent writings include a chapter (with Joanne Landy) on the feasibility of fundamental health reform in the new book “10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care”; an article on ethical issues and global health in Academic Medicine; an editorial in Medical Care; and an article on U.S. health care reform and the presidential candidates in the Journal of Health Services Research and Policy. He has also published opinion pieces in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Dr. Fein received his medical degree from Western Reserve University in 1967 and completed his internship at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital and his residency at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx. In 1977 he became director of general medicine outpatient services at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and subsequently acting-director of the division of general medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. He was a Robert Wood Johnson health policy fellow in 1993-1994, where he worked as a legislative assistant for the Senate Democratic Majority Leader, George Mitchell.
Dr. Fein received the Elnora M. Rhodes Service award from the Society of General Internal Medicine in 1999; the Haven Emerson Award from the Public Health Association of New York City in 2001; and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowships Program in 2008.
