PNHP

Brenda J. Butka, MD, MA

Brenda J. Butka, MD, MA

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Dr. Brenda Butka is a retired pulmonologist in Nashville. Prior to retirement, she was director of the pulmonary program at Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital, and assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University in the division of allergy, pulmonary, and critical care medicine.

Dr. Butka has worked as an intensivist at Nashville General Hospital and as medical director of the progressive respiratory care unit at St. Thomas Hospital. She was medical director of the respiratory therapy department at both hospitals. Her special interests include long-term ventilation, both invasive and non-invasive, and the pulmonary problems of patients with neuromuscular diseases.

Dr. Butka received her undergraduate degree from Andrews University, Michigan, and a masters degree from the University of Michigan. She earned her medical degree from Emory University and completed internal medicine residency and pulmonary fellowship at Vanderbilt.

John Perryman, MD

John Perryman, MD

Pediatrics

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Dr. John Perryman, a general pediatrician, is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, and completed pediatrics training at Children’s Memorial Hospital. He is currently employed by MercyHealth, working in the Rockford area. In addition to serving on several health care committees over his 25-plus years in practice, he has completed multiple graduate level business courses. Dr. Perryman is the current co-president of PNHP in northern Illinois, and is working on outreach about single-payer health care to a variety of organizations in the state.

Garrett Adams, MD, MPH

Garrett Adams, MD, MPH

Pediatrics/Infectious Diseases

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Dr. Garrett Adams is a pediatrician specializing in infectious disease and infectious disease epidemiology in Louisville, KY. He received his undergraduate and masterā€™s degrees from Vanderbilt University and medical degree from Wake Forest University. He completed his residency at Vanderbilt University Hospital and the Childrenā€™s Hospital of Los Angeles.

Dr. Adams is retired from full-time faculty at the University of Louisville School of Medicine where he was chief of pediatric infectious diseases and medical director of communicable diseases at the Louisville Metro Health Department. Since retiring, he has founded the Beersheba Springs Medical Clinic, a comprehensive ambulatory clinic in the underserved community of Beersheba Springs, Tennessee.

For forty years Dr. Adams attended the health care needs of sick children and their young families. During his career he witnessed deterioration in health care access and health care delivery in the United States. He is a past president of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Philip A. Verhoef, MD, PhD

Philip A. Verhoef, MD, PhD

Critical Care Medicine

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Dr. Phil Verhoef is an adult and pediatric intensivist and Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the John A. Burns School of Medicine at University of Hawaii-Manoa. As a single-payer advocate, he is the current president (and a national board member) of Physicians for a National Health Program; past president of the Illinois Single Payer Coalition; past president of the PNHP-IL chapter; and was faculty advisor for the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine SNaHP chapter since its inception, prior to moving to Hawaii in 2019. His health care reform and single-payer-related publications include letters, op-eds, and editorials in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Chest, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Springfield Journal-Register, and kevinmd.com.

Dr. Verhoef completed medical and graduate training at Case Western Reserve University, followed by residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at UCLA and subspecialty ICU fellowship training at the University of Chicago. He has led an NIH-funded research lab studying the immunology of sepsis in the ICU and his scientific work has been published in Nature, PNAS, AJRCCM, AJRCMB, JCI-Insight, and the Journal of Immunology. Dr. Verhoef is interested in improving the care of septic patients through a precise understanding of their immune systems in response to infection, using a range of translational and ā€œbig dataā€ methodologies.

Ana Malinow, MD, MSHCPM, FAAP

Ana Malinow, MD, MSHCPM, FAAP

Pediatrics

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Dr. Ana Malinow is a professor of pediatrics at the University of California-San Francisco. She was previously associate residency program director at Childrenā€™s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. Prior to moving to Pittsburgh, Dr. Malinow was associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and attending physician in the pediatric emergency and ambulatory center at Ben Taub General Hospital, where most of her patients were uninsured. Dr. Malinow is the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including for grand rounds presentations on health care. She was named one of Houstonā€™s top female physicians by Health and Fitness Sports Magazine.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dr. Malinow earned a bachelorā€™s degree from the University of California at Davis and a masterā€™s degree in creative writing before completing her medical education at Case Western Reserve University. She completed residency in pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Childrenā€™s Hospital. She also holds a masterā€™s degree in health care policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Malinow is a past president of Physicians for a National Health Program and co-founder of Health Care for all Texas, a grassroots organization that promotes single-payer national health insurance. She is also co-founder of Doctors for Change, an organization of health care professionals that organize for improved access to health care in Houston and Harris county.

Margaret Flowers, MD

Margaret Flowers, MD

Pediatrics

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Dr. Margaret Flowers is a pediatrician and currently serves as a national board adviser for Physicians for a National Health Program.

Dr. Flowers, a mother of three teens, graduated cum laude and AOA from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and completed residency training in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

She was director of the pediatric hospitalist program and chief of pediatrics at Carroll County General Hospital, a rural hospital in Maryland. While at CCGH, she oversaw the opening of a level II nursery. She has taught Pediatric Advanced Life Support for the Johns Hopkins H.O.P.E. program and served on the Fetus and Newborn Committee of the Maryland chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Subsequently, she practiced primary pediatrics in a small community practice and then at an all-girl boarding high school.

Dr. Flowers left practice in May 2007 to work on health care reform full-time. In November 2008 she joined the steering committee of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care. Dr. Flowers is a national board member of Healthcare Now, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to popularizing the single-payer perspective.

After multiple meetings with and requests to members of Congress to include single payer in the health care debate were unsuccessful, she joined seven other physicians and advocates in an action in the Senate Finance Committee in May 2009 and was arrested. She testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in June 2009.

Robert L. Zarr, MD, MPH

Robert L. Zarr, MD, MPH

Pediatrics

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Dr. Robert Zarr is a board-certified pediatrician at Unity Health Care, located in Washington, DC, where he cares for low-income and immigrant populations. He served as PNHP president from 2015 through 2016. He is Founder and Medical Director of Park Rx America, a community health initiative to prescribe nature to patients and families to prevent and treat chronic disease and promote wellness. He previously served as the Park Rx Advisor to the National Park Service in his national advocacy to connect patients to parks.