TUSM & COMMUNITY BASED FACULTY

Cambridge Health Alliance - Chief of Family Medicine

Randy Wertheimer, MD - is the newly appointed Jaharis Chair of Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and Chief of Family Medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance.
Dr. Wertheimer previously had a long career at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and UMass-Memorial Health system where she was Vice Chair of Family Medicine and Community Health.

Dr. Wertheimer is a graduate of Boston University School of Medicine. She is board certified in Family Medicine and is a practicing Family Physician, in special interest in women's health and the underserved.

Over the course of her career, Dr. Wertheimer has built a solid reputation as a physician, researcher, and educator. She is past President of the MA Academy of Family Physicians and served on the MA Board of Registration of Medicine from 2000-2009. She is a Board Member of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation, an organization devoted to expanding access to care for the underserved and uninsured families of Massachusetts. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation Board has helped health care reform in Massachusetts - expanding coverage to all. She is an accomplished author, and has contributed chapters in several Family Medicine textbooks including discussions of Pregnancy and Prenatal care for Family Physicians. She has also helped influence policy statewide and currently serves on the MA-Department of Public Health Task Force on Maternal Morbidity and Mortality.

Dr. Wertheimer sees patients at the Malden Family Health Center.

Family Medicine Predoctoral Director

Wayne Altman, MD - Family Medicine Pre-Doctoral, Clerkship Director at Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed his medical school and residency training at Umass. His interests include Pediatric Obesity Prevention, his wife and sons, and Boston Sports Teams, but not necessarily in that order.

Family Medicine Faculty Development Fellows, TUFMR

Deborah R. Erlich, MD - Dr. Erlich has always lived in the Northeast and has been in Cambridge and Boston since 1998. She earned her bachelor's degree in psychology at Harvard and wrote a thesis on perceptions of race. After college, she worked with cancer patients at Massachusetts General Hospital and then went to medical school at Tufts, when she embraced Family Medicine and medical education. During residency right here at TUFMR, Dr. Erlich continued her active involvement in teaching both locally and at regional conferences. She spent two years serving on the ACGME [Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education]'s Review Committee for Family Medicine, accrediting residency programs nationwide and helping to revise the national residency requirements for family medicine. During her time as a Master Teacher Fellow, Dr. Erlich looks forward to helping develop the residency curriculum as well as teaching and mentoring at the medical school. Her medical interests include child/adolescent medicine, women's health, skin care, and preventive medicine. Her husband, the other Dr. Erlich, works on the opposite end of the medical spectrum in Critical Care/ Anesthesiology. Outside of work they enjoy cooking, surfing, motorcycling, and snowboarding, but not all at the same time.

CHA - Malden Family Medicine Center

Laura Sullivan, MD - is the Medical Director for the CHA-Malden Family Medicine Center. She attended Brown University, enjoyed some time in San Francisco, and graduated from Chicago Medical School before coming to the east coast and completing her residency at U Mass Worcester Family Medicine Residency. She joined CHA because she liked the mix of the patient population and the mission to serve the underserved. Each day there are opportunities to make a difference in someone's life. She speaks some Spanish. Her clinical interests include full spectrum family medicine - including OB! She enjoys biking to work, staying active and spending time with her nieces and nephews.

Community-Based Faculty

Monica DeMasi, MD - Dr.DeMasi works at Union Square Family Health. She is the medical student coordinator for that site. She went to both college and medical school at Case Western Reserve University. Her undergraduate degree was in medical anthropology where she focused on Latino Mental Health. During medical school she spent several months working in a clinic in a Mayan village in the Yucatan. She completely her residency in Family Medicine at Brown University. She is interested in primary care, medical education, international medicine, and immigrant health with a focus on underserved populations. She is a recipient of the Mass League loan repayment program. Dr.DeMasi is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. She is also active in an ongoing medical anthropology seminar at Harvard University Department of Anthropology. She is married to Justin Lodge, an architecture professor, and has a 2 y/o son Jack.

Bonnie Engelbart, MD - was born and raised in New Jersey. She earned a BA in Chemistry from Colgate University and attended medical school at The George Washington University. While in medical school she developed an interest in underserved patient populations that has continued to this day. She went on to family medicine residency at UPMC St. Margaret in Pittsburgh. During residency she completed an intensive Spanish course and spent time working in Peru, Honduras, and Mexico. After graduation she took a job at the Lynn Community Health Center where she worked for 6 years with a multi-ethnic patient population (primarily Domincan and Guatemalan) and perfected her Spanish. She also became very involved as a preceptor for Tufts medical students, coordinating all of the medical students working at the clinic and directing a 4th year family medicine elective, "Serving the Underserved". She recently took a position at CHA and is helping to open the new CHA office in Everett. While this site is getting off the ground she is working at Revere Family Health. She will be rounding with residents at the Whidden and will continue her work with Tufts medical students. Her clinical interests include dermatology procedures, caring for multicultural patient populations, and leading medical students to careers in Family medicine using clinical experiences in an underserved setting. Outside of medicine she enjoys cooking, running, and hiking. She lives with her husband Marc, a high school physics teacher, and their 2 year old son Noah, and newborn son Caleb in Medford.

John Angelo Gnassi, MD - Director of Inpatient Teaching Service, Director of Medical Informatics; grew up in East Brunswick and Loch Arbour, New Jersey. Dr. Gnassi graduated from Brown University, Rutgers Medical School, and did his Family Practice internship at the University of Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis. He completed his residency training in Philadelphia at Northeastern Hospital and Chestnut Hill Hospital. Dr. Gnassi then broke new ground for family physicians at the Massachusetts General Hospital by completing a three year Medical Informatics fellowship. Dr. Gnassi joined the Family Practice Residency Program faculty in July 1994. At The 1996 residency graduation he was awarded the Sidney Zeitler Memorial Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching.

In recent years he has helped set up and maintain a lecture video-conferencing system, a text page ID system, and a phone message system. He is currently involved in setting up the Electronic Health Record for the new Family Medicine Center.

Dr. Gnassi's curricular interests include critical analysis, ICU medicine, emergency medicine, and clinical computing. He is a member of the AAFP, Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, American Medical Informatics Association, and the American String Teachers' Association.

Dr. Gnassi is a passable violinist and baritone horn player. He is learning how to construct a bathroom and also enjoys 35 mm, Polaroid, and video photography, computer programming, studying Dutch, German, and etymology, cycling, and generally tinkering with things. Last year he and his spouse took up scuba diving and motorcycling to help equalize stress between work and personal life. His family includes his 5 year old daughter Karin Citroen, 14 year-old son Alexander, his spouse Mieke Citroen, and their cats Tijgetje and Weasley.

Lara Hall, MD - grew up in the Bay Area in northern California. She graduated from Brown University with a degree in Political Science, then worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Congo in Central Africa for 2 years. Before attending medical school at UC San Diego, she worked as a medical assistant and clinic coordinator at Planned Parenthood. She completed residency at the Lawrence Family Practice Residency 30 miles north of Boston. Currently, Dr. Hall works at the Union Square Family Health Center in Somerville. She also provides obstetric inpatient care at the Cambridge Hospital. She joined Cambridge Health Alliance in 2007. Dr. Hall speaks French and Spanish and is learning Portuguese. She lives in Somerville with her husband (who she met in the Peace Corps) and their 2.5 year old son.

Lisa Riccio Howe, NP - is a Family Nurse Practitioner who has a dual position at Everett Teen Health Center and Malden Family Medicine Center. She began her NP career in 1988, after graduating from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, at Somerville Family Health Service and Somerville High School's Teen Connection. She then spent the next dozen years in primary care on the North Shore. She served as the community medicine faculty coordinator at Beverly Hospital's Family Practice Residency Program. While there she continued to focus on the health needs of adolescents coordinating projects at local high schools and colleges. She has published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, and presented at conferences with resident teams on topics such as Teen Dating Violence. She was excited for the opportunity to return to a school based-health center when CHA opened the Everett Teen Health Center in 2006. She was even more excited to be able to combine that position with one on the primary care team in Malden where she plans to share her appreciation for teen health needs with the residents. She lives in Ipswich where she enjoys boating with her husband, walking her dog, and coordinating the social calendars of her two teenage daughters.

Amanda Klein, MD - is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She completed her residency training at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center where she also completed a faculty development fellowship on group visits and diabetes. Her practice for the last few years is at the CHA Broadway Health Center in Somerville which serves a largely Salvadoran and Brazilian population. Her areas of interest include adolescent medicine, group visits, diabetes, integrative medicine and patient empowerment. In her practice she is the Reach Out and Read coodinator, and has a monthly Brazilian diabetic group. An additional area of interest is medical informatics and she is involved in a working group in this area. She speaks Spanish and is working on her Portuguese. Dr Klein lives in Arlington with her husband who is a Massage Therapist. At home she enjoys playing with her newborn daughter and 2 year old son.

Yulya Kutsman, DO - was born in Odessa, Ukraine. Completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California San Diego with degrees in Neuroscience and Psychology. Worked on clinical research project in UCSD department of psychiatry. Graduated from Western University School of Medicine. Residency training completed at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center. During residency worked on development of prenatal education curriculum including both resident training and patient education materials. Participated in Prenatal education group and community based effort for Diabetes Education and Prevention.

Professional interests include group maternity and women's heath, group prenatal care, complementary and alternative medicine integration in practice, asthma management and education, international medicine. Was involved in the international medical work in Honduras.

For the last few years works at the CHA Broadway Health Center in Somerville where she successfully started group prenatal care. Enjoy working with underserved, have large Hispanic and Brazilian patient population. Fluent in Russian and Spanish.

She enjoys teaching, and is actively involved in medical student education at CHA. She has 2 kids, enjoy spending time with kids outdoors, also reading and black and white photography.

Maurice Martin, MD - graduated from Swarthmore College, NYU School of Medicine, and the UMass family practice residency, where, expecting to be a rural doctor, he trained at the health center in Barre. In 1979, veering from his anticipated course, he founded Somerville Family Practice, supported by three years of National Health Service Corps funding, and then ran it independently, as he still does today.

In the 1980s he helped establish the department of family medicine at Somerville Hospital and served as its leader. He continued as chief of the family medicine department of Cambridge Health Alliance from its formation in 1996 until 2005.

He plays the saxophone and clarinet and is musical director of the Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band, a fifteen-piece New-Orleans-style marching band. He is one of the founders of HONK!, the annual festival of activist street bands, held in Davis Square. He is married and has two adult children.

Kirsten Meisinger, MD - is Medical Director of Union Square Family Health Center, a busy Cambridge Health Alliance practice in Somerville with 10 Family Medicine physicians. The clinic serves a primarily immigrant population with Brazilians, Salvadorans, Indians and Nepalis among the many ethnic groups served. Kirsten has worked there for 9 years, serving as co-medical director since 2008. She is now Vice-Chair of the FM Dept at CHA and is the sole Medical Director of the site. Her professional interests include Gyn procedures including colposcopy and dermatologic procedures, women's health, and group visits. Kirsten is originally from New York City, went to Brown University for a BA, Case Western Reserve U. for medical School and completed her Family Medicine Residency at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center. She has worked in Mexico and Nicaragua. Dr. Meisinger is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French. She has 3 children ages 8, 5 and 3 and can be seen running around Arlington with them and the family dog.

Katherine Miller, MD - is the Associate Chief of Family Medicine Maternity Services for Cambridge Health Alliance. Dr. Miller is a native of Tucson, Arizona, where she received her Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering followed by her MD from the University of Arizona where she also completed her residency in 1996. After working 2 years in Tucson, Dr. Miller completed a 5 month Fullbright teaching scholarship in Argentina, then relocated to Massachusetts. She has spent the last 7 years in Cambridge and Somerville working with a multi-ethnic (but mostly Salvadoran and Brazilian) population. She is fluent in Spanish, speaks medical Portuguese. Outside of medicine, Dr. Miller is an avid Flamenco dancer and runner. She and her husband Chris live in Somerville with their 3 cats.

Patrick Sabia, MD - is a graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook who completed his residency at St. Francis Hospital. He joined CHA in 2004 and sees patients at Union Square Family Health in Somerville, MA. He provides the full range of family medicine care, including prenatal care and deliveries. Dr. Sabia served as a faculty member at the Lawrence Family Medicine residency for 8 years, where he was a member of the Outpatient Curriculum Committee and supervised residents in both the outpatient and all inpatient settings. He also served as the medical student clerkship coordinator at the Lawrence program for 4 years. He has a special interest in womens health, obstetrical care and pediatrics. He has been a colposcopist for almost 10 years and continues to provide these services at his current practice. He is board certified in Family Medicine and is fluent in Spanish and speaks some Portuguese as well. He is currently on the Perinatal Committee and Pediatric Quality Improvement Committee at the Cambridge Health Alliance. Dr. Sabia is married to a Swiss and has two young boys, Gian and Andrino. He is currently trying to add German and Rumansch to his language skills!

Stanley Sagov, MD - was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. Graduated from University of Capeton Medical School and moved to New York City to do an extended rotating internship passing throughout Bellevue, New York Hospital and Grasslands County Medical centre in Westchester. His other reason for going to NYC was to play Jazz piano with many of my heroes. After 2 years there I came to Boston and did a degree in Jazz Piano and Oboe at the New England Conservatory of Music.

He then did fellowships in family medicine and community health at Childrens Hospital, The Brigham and Beth Israel hospitals as part of the Harvard Family Health Care Program.

He came to the Cambridge side of the river and has been on staff at Cambridge and Mount Auburn Hospitals since the 1970's. I am currently Chief of Family Medicine at Mount Auburn Hospital

Dr. Sagov developed the Family Practice Group as a teaching community practice then and they are now located in Arlington after about twenty five years in Cambridge. They delivered babies for twenty seven years but now do just everything else that Family docs can do, including colposcopy, biopsies, D&C's, vasectomies etc…They accept students and residents from all four schools in the state and love the teaching and learning as they care for their patients. He is particularly interested in the politics of the doctor patient relationship and family systems opportunities in family medical practice.

He is married with two daughters and one feisty granddaughter. He takes photographs all the time and remains fanatical about playing and recording Jazz piano (check him out on itunes,CDBaby).

Jonathan Snider,MD - was born and raised on Long Island, NY. He attended Brandeis University where he graduated magna cum laude with high honors in Chemistry. He immediately went on to complete his medical degree with induction into Alpha Omega Alpha at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

He went on to complete his family medicine residency at UMass Worcester, serving as chief resident during his final year at the Hahnemann Family Health Center.

In addition to his office practice based in Wellesley MA, Dr. Snider enjoys teaching and regularly spends time at the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency program, teaching young doctors the ins and outs of office based medicine.

Dr. Snider's clinical interests include comprehensive primary care, preventative care with a focus on the patient. In addition to the full scope of health services for the whole family, Dr. Snider also performs some common, minor surgical procedures right in his office, such as skin
biopsies. He also is very interested in the use of technology to enhance the doctor - patient relationship. He loves caring for the entire family from the newborn in the nursery to the grandparent.

Dr. Snider was married to his wife Jen during his third year of medical school and has three daughters, Julia, Emily and Claudia.

Timothy Stephens , MD - TUFMR Class of 2008. Tim graduated from University of Kansas School of Medicine - Kansas City in 2005. He is originally from Sydney, Australia, and has professional interests in teaching, obstetrics, pediatrics, and the international development of family medicine. His travels include short-term work with a General Practice residency training program in The People's Republic of China, and he has presented Information Mastery topics in the U.S. and China. He is currently an instructor candidate for the ALSO course. He is now practicing at the CHA Windsor Street Health Center in Cambridge, Mass, where he provides primary care to a diverse patient population in English and Spanish, including office Derm & GYN procedures, colposcopy and obstetrical care.

Rachel Wheeler, MD - is a graduate of the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology who counts herself lucky to have discovered an unanticipated career in family medicine during a fourth year elective with a family doc in central Massachusetts. After completing her residency at U Mass, she served as residency faculty for 7 years before leaving to join what is now the Cambridge Health Alliance system. She is Medical Director of Union Square Family Health in Somerville and enjoys practicing there in three languages (English, Spanish and Portuguese). She was one of the first physicians in this area to begin offering group visits and continues to work with a group of diabetic patients who have been together since 2001. She is passionate about culturally competent patient centered care and about creating systems to improve practice quality. She is a past president of the Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians. She founded a Balint group with other experienced clinicians over15 years ago that still meets regularly to discuss challenging patients. Outside of medicine, she enjoys reading, travel and hiking and is the proud mother of two young women.

Pano Yeracaris, MD, MPH - is the VP and Chief Medical Officer of the Network Health, a state-wide HMO in Massachusetts where he provides medical leadership for the clinical quality, behavioral health, pharmacy, care management and utilization management programs. Prior to coming to Network Health in November, 2004, Dr Yeracaris was the Chief Medical Officer of The Health Services Partnership of Dorchester (HSP) from 6/98-11/04, a joint venture Medical Management Services Organization between two well respected community health centers in Dorchester, MA. Dr. Yeracaris was responsible for managed care contracting, care management, clinical quality, information technology, and served as the Medical Director for the two health centers providing leadership for the medical groups and leadership for improvement efforts in practice management processes.

Before returning to Boston in 1997 to attend the Harvard School of Public Health and pursue an MPH in health care management, Dr. Yeracaris practiced for 13 years from 1984-1997 as a primary care staff physician at an inner city medical center for a non-profit staff model HMO in Western New York, Health Care Plan (HCP). He also worked extensively in Quality Management, guideline development, quality measurement, utilization management and served as the medical advisor of HCPs outpatient chemical dependency program. Dr. Yeracaris also served as the Medical Director of Buffalo Community Health (a start-up joint venture Medicaid HMO) from 1996 to 1997 and was an NCQA (National Comm for Quality Assurance) physician reviewer from 1992-1998.

"Medical care provided in isolation from economic, educational, and community development issues, will never fully reach the potential to maximize the health status of society or individual patients". Dr. Yeracaris completed his BA at Harvard College with honors, received his MD degree from the SUNY at Buffalo, and completed a residency in Family Medicine at the UNC at Chapel Hill.