|
TUSM
& COMMUNITY BASED FACULTY
|
Community-Based
Faculty
|
|
|
Monica DeMasi, MD
Bonnie Engelbart, MD
John Angelo Gnassi, MD
Lara Hall, MD
Lisa Riccio Howe, NP
Amanda Klein, MD
Yulya Kutsman, DO
Maurice Martin, MD
|
Kirsten Meisinger, MD
Katherine Miller, MD
Patrick Sabia, MD
Stanley Sagov, MD
Jonathan Snider, MD
Timothy N. Stephens, MD
Rachel Wheeler, MD
Pano Yeracaris, MD, MPH
|
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.
|