Physician Advocacy Committee and Staff
Physician Advocacy Committee
George Askew, MD
Deputy Chief Executive Officer
Voices for America's Children (VOICES)
George Askew, MD a board-certified pediatrician, is Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Voices for America's Children (VOICES). He is also Founder and former Executive Director of Docs for Tots, and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine. He has devoted his professional primary care clinical career to serving low-income children and their families. Dr. Askew was a Soros Physician Advocacy Fellow, has served as Chief of the Health and Disabilities Services Branch of the Head Start Bureau and Medical Advisor to the Commissioner for the Administration on Children, Youth and Families in the US Department of Health and Human Services. Among other honors, Dr. Askew was a national finalist in the 1995-1996 White House Fellowship Program, was invited to participate in the New Leadership Program of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Child Health Research Center, and was named one of Ashoka International's 2005 Fellows.
Robert S. Lawrence, MD
Edyth Schoenrich Professor of Preventative Medicine and Associate Dean for Professional Education
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Robert Lawrence, MD is the Edyth H. Schoenrich Professor of Preventive Medicine, Associate Dean for Professional Practice and Programs, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is the founding Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and directs the Health and Human Rights Certificate Program. Dr. Lawrence is a founding member of Physicians for Human Rights and served as a member of the Board of Directors from 1985-1991, 1997, and served as President from 1998 to 2003. Dr. Lawrence chaired the first US Preventive Services Task Force and served on the successor Task Force. He currently serves as a consultant to the CDC's Task Force on Community Preventive Services.
Susana R. Morales, MD
Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Director, Center for Multicultural and Minority Health
Cornell University
Susana Morales, MD is Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and the Associate Chair for Educational Affairs in the Department of Medicine of the Weill-Cornell/New York Presbyterian Hospital. She is the Associate Director of the Housestaff Training Program, directs the Office of Multicultural and Minority Health, and directs the Psychosocial Curriculum for medical housestaff. She has served on numerous boards and advisory committees, has presented at many national meetings and is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. In 1993 she was a member of the White House Briefing Team for the National Health Task Force during the Clinton administration. She was a member of the Commonwealth Fund's “Bettering the Health of Minority Americans” Advisory Board. She is the recipient of the 1999 National Medical Fellowships Community Service Award, presented for extraordinary commitment in the area of public health. She is the author of articles and book chapters on issues pertaining to minority health, the care of the underserved, and minority medical education.
Thomas O'Toole, MD
Associate Dean for Curriculum and Professor of Medicine
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Tom O'Toole, MD has been a program officer for the Medicine as a Profession initiative at the Open Society Institute-Baltimore from 1999-2004, helping direct the Soros Service Program for Community Health medical education project. He is the Associate Dean for Curriculum and a professor of medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine. His research and advocacy work has been in homeless health care, and access to care billing practices and among urban poor populations.
Katie Plax, MD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
St. Louis Children's Hospital
Katie Plax, MD is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine, and Director of the Adolescent Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital where she enjoys seeing patients and teaching residents and medical students. A former Soros Advocacy Fellow, Dr. Plax spends much of her time and energy advocating for health care access for uninsured and underinsured people in
David J. Rothman, PhD
Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine
Columbia University
David J. Rothman, PhD is Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine and also Director of the Center for the Study of Society and Medicine at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He has written extensively about the history of medicine, as well as current health policy and practice, ethics of human experimentation, and medical professionalism. His published works include Strangers at the Bedside; A History of How Law and Bioethics Transformed Medical Decision Making; “Medical Professionalism– Focusing on the Real Issues” in The New England Journal of Medicine, and “The Shame of Medical Research” in The New York Review of Books.
Fellows Staff
Michelle Moses-Eisenstein
Program Coordinator
mlm2221@columbia.edu
Michelle Moses-Eisenstein is the Program Coordinator for the Advocacy Initiatives. She joined CMAP in June 2008. Previously, Michelle was the Coordinator at the Dean's Office at Columbia Business School. As a recipient of the Bard Human Rights Fellowship, she worked with Women's Equity in Access to Care and Treatment, a not-for-profit that provides medical services and empowers survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Michelle also worked for American Jewish World Service and the International Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. At Bard College she volunteered as a peer health educator and majored in Psychology with a concentration in Global and International Studies.
Contact us:
Advocacy Programs
Institute on Medicine as a Profession
630 W. 168th Street
P&S Box 11
New York, NY 10032
212-342-4769
Email us
Contact us:
Advocacy Programs
Institute on Medicine as a Profession
630 W. 168th Street
P&S Box 11
New York, NY 10032
212-342-4769
Email us