George D. Lundberg, MD is President and Chair of the Board of Directors of The Lundberg Institute and serves on the Board of Directors. A Consulting Professor, Stanford University, and Editor at Large at MedPage Today and Editor in Chief of Cancer Commons from Collabrx; Dr. Lundberg also has had twenty-seven years combined experience as Editor in Chief of JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association), 10 AMA specialty journals, AMA News, Medscape, The Medscape Journal and e-Medicine from Web MD. A 1995 "pioneer" of the medical internet, Dr. Lundberg was born in Florida, grew up in rural southern Alabama and holds earned and honorary degrees from North Park College, Baylor University, the University of Alabama (Birmingham and Tuscaloosa), the State University of New York, Syracuse, Thomas Jefferson University and the Medical College of Ohio. He completed a clinical internship in Hawaii and a pathology residency in San Antonio. He served in the US army during the Vietnam War in San Francisco and El Paso, leaving as a lieutenant colonel after 11 years. Dr. Lundberg was then Professor of Pathology and Associate Director of Laboratories at the Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center for 10 years, and for five years was Professor and Chair of Pathology at the University of California-Davis. Dr. Lundberg has worked in tropical medicine in Central America and Forensic Medicine in New York, Sweden and England. His major professional interests are toxicology, violence, communication, physician behavior, strategic management and health system reform. He is past President of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists. He is a frequent lecturer, radio and television guest, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, In 2000, the Industry Standard dubbed Dr. Lundberg "Online Health Care's Medicine Man". This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Kathryn R. Watson, JD, MPH, is Secretary of the Board of Directors of The Lundberg Institute. Kathryn is a practicing attorney who has specialized in health care policy. She is a graduate of Brown University and was a Public Interest Law Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center. During law school, she served as a policy intern at the Kaiser Family Foundation and as a researcher for the Center for Law and the Public’s Health. Kathryn also earned a Masters in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, where she was a Greenwall Fellow in Bioethics. In 2006, Kathryn co-authored "Redeeming Hollow Promises: The Case for Mandatory Spending on Health Care for American Indians and Alaska Natives," published in the American Journal of Public Health. Kathryn clerked for a federal district judge and was a health care associate in private practice prior to returning to the public sector, where she currently serves as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney. Kathryn also serves on the Advisory Board for San Francisco's Women's Community Clinic, a free health center, and teaches employment law to physicians. She spends her free time enjoying live music and mountain hikes
Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH is an internationally respected healthcare thought leader and consultant and one of very few persons ever elected to both the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Public Administration. He has been selected as one of the ‘100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare’ by Modern Healthcare magazine on several occasions, and his work has been featured in Time, BusinessWeek, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and numerous other magazines, newspapers and national television shows.
Dr. Kizer’s professional experience includes positions in both the public and private sectors, including serving as President, CEO and Chairman of Medsphere Systems Corporation, the nation’s leading commercial provider of open source healthcare information technology; founding president and CEO of the National Quality Forum, a Washington, DC-based quality improvement and consensus standards setting organization; Under Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and chief executive officer of the nation’s largest healthcare system; Director of the former California Department of Health Services; Professor and Chairman of the Department of Community and International Health and Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Davis; and Director of the Emergency Medical Services Authority for the State of California. He has served on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and as Chairman of the Board of The California Wellness Foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted to health promotion and disease prevention, as well as on the governing boards of two managed care companies, several other foundations and various professional associations and non-profit organizations.
Dr. Kizer is an honors graduate of Stanford University and UCLA, and the recipient of two honorary doctorates. He is board certified in six medical specialties and/or subspecialties, and has authored over 400 original articles, book chapters and other reports. He is a fellow or distinguished fellow of 11 professional societies and a member of Alpha Omega Alpha National Honor Medical Society and Delta Omega National Honorary Public Health Society, as well as the IOM and NAPA. He is also a Fellow National of the international Explorer’s Club, a founding member and past president of the international Wilderness Medical Society, a former U.S. Navy diver, and a nationally recognized expert on diving and aquatic sports medicine and the medical aspects of wilderness activities.
Peter A. Jensen, MFA serves on the Board of Directors of The Lundberg Institute. He is a multimedia, biotechnology and systems biology entrepreneur, and business executive with a BA in Biological Sciences magna cum laude from UC Santa Barbara and an MFA in The Producer's Program from UCLA School of Film & Television. He has over twenty years of international experience in medical systems and bio informatics, 3D and 2D animated film & television production, software development, sales and marketing, key account management, and business development.
Patricia Lundberg, PhD, is Treasurer of the Board of Directors of The Lundberg Institute and serves on the Board of Directors. She is Executive Director of Humanities West, a San Francisco based non-profit organization that offers interdisciplinary arts and culture programming for the public in collaboration with noted academics and performers. She has been Professor of English and Women's Studies on the Indiana University Northwest faculty since 1989, and has served as Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, as well as interim Dean and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Now Professor Emerita, prior to joining Humanities West she served as Founding Executive Director of the Center for Regional Excellence and the Center for Cultural Discovery and Learning. Her doctorate is from Loyola University Chicago, where she also earned a BA Summa Cum Laude and a Masters in English. She is the recipient of several grants and awards and has post-doctoral training from Harvard in leadership. Prior to her academic career she had ten years experience as a medical association executive and publisher. She writes poetry and literary analyses and biography, and writes and edits health care essays in collaboration with Dr. George Lundberg.
Teri Reynolds MD, PhD, serves on the Board of Directors of The Lundberg Institute. She is a Clinical Fellow in Emergency Medicine Ultrasound and a MS candidate in Global Health at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, CA. Dr Reynolds holds a PhD in English from Columbia University in New York and an MD from UCSF. She completed her residency in Emergency Medicine at the Highland Alameda County Medical Center in Oakland. During her medical training following her work in academic English, Dr Reynolds performed in leadership roles in medical editing and journalism both for the Journal of the American Medical Association and for the Medscape Journal of Medicine, serving as the top editor for the medical student components of both.
Our Advisory Board
Malinda H. Bell, MD, was originally educated as a journalist and received her MD at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She trained in Emergency Medicine at the Truman Medical Center and has practiced Emergency Medicine in Kansas and Michigan for about 20 years.
Arthur Caplan, PhD, received his BA from Brandeis, and his MA, MPhil, and PhD from Columbia University. His long and stellar career has lead him through the Hastings Center, the University of Pittsburgh and the
University of Minnesota from 1979-1994. Since 1994, Dr Caplan has served as Professor of Medicine, Philosophy and Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania while heading up Bioethics. In 2009, he was
also named the Sidney D Caplan Chair of Medical Ethics. Professor Caplan's prolific work in writing,speaking and consulting have resulted in hundreds of such activities.
Linda L. Emanuel, MD, PhD, received her PhD from University College, London, and her MD from Harvard. She worked in General Medicine, Public Health and Ethics in Boston prior to becoming the first Director of the Ethics Institute at the American Medical Association. Now Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the Buehler Center on Aging at Northwestern University, Dr. Emanuel is an eminent authority on ethics and medical practice in palliative care.
Valerie A. (Val) Jones, MD, received her BA from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia where she grew up caring for dairy cows on a "yogurt farm." Her MD is from Columbia University. She studied surgery and theology before completing her training in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. After a part-time editorial role at The Medscape Journal, Dr. Jones became a major medical communication figure at Revolution Health. She is now CEO of Better Health LLC, a Washington, DC based health information company featuring scores of bloggers.
Jerome P. Kassirer, MD, earned his MD from the University of Buffalo School of Medicine. Trained as an internist at the Buffalo General Hospital and in Nephrology at the New England Medical Center, he became an early leader in the evolving science of clinical decision making. In 1991 he assumed the role of Editor in Chief of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, where he was a role model for aspiring Editors until 1999. After receiving many awards, Dr. Kassirer returned to Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston where he remains active as a Distinguished Professor of Medicine, also teaching regularly at Stanford Medical School.
Brian Klepper, PhD received his PhD in 1985 in Speech, Hearing and Language Science from the University of Florida, but nearly immediately migrated and has spent his career as an analyst, commentator and advisor in the even murkier waters of health care market dynamics, medical management, health IT, and policy. Most recently he has worked with large health care firms and governmental organizations to develop market-based reforms that leverage the lessons of health care’s last 25 years to produce significant, documentable savings and improvements in quality. He also is Principal in a venture that builds onsite and near-site comprehensive primary care clinics for employers, prisons and indigent care programs.
David C. Kibbe, MD, MBA, received his BA from Harvard, his MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and his MD from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Trained as a family physician, Dr. Kibbe practiced small town family medicine prior to a stellar career in Information Technology. Now the Principal at The Kibbe Group LLC in Chapel Hill, NC, Dr Kibbe is best known for work with the American Academy of Family Physicians in strategic planning and his writing and speaking about best practices for medical information technology. He is one of the core developers of the Continuity of Care Record, CCR, standard, an XML technology for secure and interoperable exchange of clinically relevant health data about a person.
C Everett Koop, MD, received his BS from Dartmouth and his MD from Cornell. His long career in medicine found early and sustained brilliance in Pediatric Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. In 1981, Dr Koop became a controversial Surgeon General, serving for 8 years during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. His work as surgeon general was stellar, including as the leader in understanding and coping with the new disease AIDS, and waging a strong campaign against tobacco. America's best known medical name of the past 50 years, Dr. Koop now holds three professorships at Dartmouth and is a senior fellow at its C. Everett Koop Institute.
LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr., MD, received his BS from Florida A and M University, and his MD from Howard. Residency training in surgery was in St. Louis and Washington, DC. After specialized training in Oncology at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and military duty in Germany, Dr. Leffall returned to practice, teaching, and research at Howard University in Washington, DC, becoming a Distinguished Professor of Surgery. Dr Leffall is one of the USA's premier surgeons, and he has received more honors than just about anyone else in the field. Along the way, his career has been characterized by his breaking many ethnic, color, social, and professional barriers.
Maggie Mahar PhD, received her BA and PhD from Yale University, at which she was an English Professor before becoming a journalist. For decades as a writer and editor, she covered topics as diverse as Wall Street finance, Washington, Russian social policy and the politics of the Middle East for Barrons, The New York Times and Bloomberg. In this century Maggie Mahar has specialized in health care, writing books, such as Money-Driven Medicine, which is also now a movie documentary and on DVD at http://money-drivenmedicine.org/ She also writes the highly regarded blog www.healthbeatblog.org for The Century Foundation in New York.
Clifton K Meador MD, a native of Selma, Alabama, received his BA and MD from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. His internship and residency in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology were at Presbyterian Hospital In New York and Vanderbilt. Over a long career sprinkled with high honors, Dr Meador has served in the US Army, performed private practice, held Professorships at UAB (where he was Dean of Medicine 1968-1973) and Vanderbilt, and served as Chief Medical Officer at St Thomas Hospital in Nashville for 16 years. Dr Meador has
authored dozens of scientific articles (including The Art and Science of non-disease in the NEJM), book chapters, and 11 books. The most recent book is "Symptoms of Unknown Origin". He currently directs the Meharry/Vanderbilt Alliance.
Michael L. Millenson, president of Health Quality Advisors LLC, is a nationally recognized expert on improving the quality of care, patient empowerment and e-health. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Demanding Medical Excellence: Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age, and he holds an adjunct appointment as the Mervin Shalowitz, M.D. Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Millenson has been a principal in the health-care practice of a major human resources consulting firm and earlier in his career was a health-care reporter for the Chicago Tribune, where he was nominated three times for a Pulitzer Prize. He has a BA in history and economics from Washington University in St. Louis.
Arthur Ulene, MD, became a board certified Obstetrician and Gynecologist specializing in oncology. As a teacher in southern California, Dr Ulene was attracted to the power of television for health information which led him to a 30-year career as the nation's best known health communicator, for 23 years on NBC's TODAY Program, and through his own company, "Feeling Fine". Dr Ulene has made his home in Los Angeles, teaching, writing and engaging in many third world philanthropic medical education activities.