Dr. Kimberly S. G. Chang,MD

Dr. Kimberly S.G. Chang is a family physician and Site Director of the Frank Kiang Medical Center of Asian Health Services (AHS), a comprehensive community health center in Oakland, California’s Chinatown, which provides primary health care services to over 21,000 limited-English-proficient, low-income, and underserved Asian immigrants and refugees annually. Dr. Chang graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in East Asian Languages and Cultures, and received her medical degree from the University of Hawai’i John A. Burns School of Medicine.  She completed her family medicine residency at the University of California at San Francisco – San Francisco General Hospital, working with and learning from urban underserved patients and populations.

As a clinician for AHS’ teen clinic, which provides targeted health care to high-risk adolescents and young adults, Dr. Chang works with many commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC)/victims of domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) in the treatment and prevention of illness and disease. She advocates for community-based services to support victims before they are arrested and engaged in the juvenile justice system, and before they become further entrenched in the cycle of violence and exploitation.  She has also trained many clinicians, outreach workers, and educators in the identification of medical and mental health needs for CSEC/DMST. Dr. Chang’s advocacy for CSEC/DMST spans multiple disciplines, from the local level to the national level. She serves as a faculty member of the National District Attorneys Association’s (NDAA) National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse.

In addition to practicing full scope ambulatory and inpatient family medicine, Dr. Chang teaches and mentors pre-medical and medical students and residents at AHS.  She serves on multiple advisory councils, including the Association of Asian Pacific American Community Health Organizations’ National Research Advisory Council, the National Association of Community Health Centers’ Subcommittee on Healthcare Finance and Clinical Practice Committees, and the University of California at San Francisco’s Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved Advisory Council and Community Advisory Board. She serves as a faculty member of the National District Attorneys Association’s (NDAA) National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse

Dr. Michael P. Hirsh,MD

Dr. Michael Hirsh was born in New York City.  After attending Bronx High School, he matriculated at Columbia College, where he obtained a BA in 1975. He then went to Harvard Medical School, after which he completed a surgical residency training at Columbia Presbyterian University Medical Center and a pediatric surgical fellowship at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children of Temple University in Philadelphia.  Thereafter, he spent six years at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, serving as co-director of the Trauma Center.  He was also co-director of the Pediatric Critical Care Unit.   

Dr. Hirsh has held positions at Allegheny General and Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh, where he began directing a consortium of injury prevention sites led by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  He is currently a Professor of Pediatrics and Surgery at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Director of the Divisions of Pediatric Surgery and Trauma of the University of Massachusetts Memorial Children’s Medical Center. He is also Associate Director of Pediatric Critical Care. Dr. Hirsh became President of the Injury Free Coalition for Kids in January, 2009 and has also served as overall Trauma Director for patients of all ages.  During that time, UMMHC received its accreditation as a Level 1 Adult and Pediatric Trauma Center. 

Dr. Hirsh currently serves as President of the Injury Free Coalition for Kids, a consortium of 42 Injury Prevention sites based at Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Centers.  He also serves as the President of the Worcester District Medical Society.  He was recently appointed Surgeon-In-Chief for the UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center. He has been happily married for 31 years to his wife, Julianne, and has 2 children, Scott, 28 and Esty, 23.

Dr. Anne Davis,MD, MPH

Anne Davis, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center.  She is a graduate of the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Washington in Seattle.  She was the first Kenneth Ryan Family Planning Fellow in Clinical Care and Research at Columbia University Medical Center and currently serves as co-director of that Fellowship.  After Fellowship, she completed a degree in Public Health at the Mailman School of Public Health. 

She is an attending at the Title X Family Planning Clinic of the Mailman School of Public Health. In addition, she provides and teaches the full range of family planning services in her practice within the Columbia Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.  Her current research focuses on contraception for women with epilepsy and use of intrauterine contraception after pregnancy. 

Dr. Davis has maintained an interest in advocacy for reproductive health throughout her career.  This advocacy includes clinical work directly on behalf of patients, reproductive health research benefitting special populations, and de-stigmatizing reproductive health through teaching.  Since 2009, she has served as Medical Director for Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health (PRCH).  In that role, she brings an evidence-based physician voice to local and national media as well as policy discussions in Washington and Albany.

Dr. Michael Gittelman,MD, FAAP

Dr. Michael Gittelman, MD, FAAP, is a pediatric emergency room physician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio and an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University Of Cincinnati School Of Medicine. He completed his undergraduate work at Swarthmore College and his medical school training at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency in Pediatrics at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia, PA and a fellowship in Emergency Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

Dr. Gittelman works in the field of injury control. He has long recognized that fulfilling the principles of medical professionalism requires going beyond the traditional scope of practice in order to address the social, economic and political barriers that interfere with the health and wellbeing of our most vulnerable citizens. Dr. Gittelman was a first year fellow in pediatric emergency medicine when he first learned that unintentional injuries were the leading cause of death for young persons in this country. In response, he helped design and implement a mandatory two-week course for all pediatric residents on Injury Prevention and Advocacy. In the thirteen years since, this curriculum has educated countless pediatric residents in the principles of injury prevention and led them to be much more involved in the communities they serve. The American Academy of Pediatrics is currently working to develop a similar program nationally.

Dr. Gittelman currently runs the Injury Prevention Program within the Division of Emergency Medicine. He also works with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, conducting the Injury Free Coalition for Kids site work both locally and nationally, and is in the process of building an integrated injury prevention center in Southwest Ohio. In recognition of his work, Dr. Gittelman was appointed the Chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Section on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention, where he serves nationally as an advocate and educator.

Dr. Gittelman has made a powerful impact on his own community, as evidenced by a reduction in injuries by as much as 42% in one of the high-risk areas served by his local Injury Free Coalition. The Injury Free Coalition developed and redesigned areas of the community to support the erection of 6 state-of-the-art playgrounds in Avondale, OH. Furthermore, the Injury Free Coalition built a football stadium and spearheaded the construction of speed bumps in high pedestrian-injury areas. In addition to building infrastructure, Dr. Gittelman’s organization worked with the community to develop after-school programming for at least 150 elementary students per day and a football league for more than 600 youth each year.
He also ensures that all graduating pediatricians know how to serve their patients as an advocate. Dr. Gittelman has made an impact on the education of many more pediatricians nationally through his advocacy work within the American Academy of Pediatrics. Furthermore, he demonstrates his deep commitment to improving the health of children by also promoting healthy eating and physical activity as well as safety education.

Dr. Gittelman is a true physician advocate who overcomes obstacles and challenges with passion and persistence. We are proud to honor him for his commitment to finding the most effective ways to educate families and providers about preventable injuries and developing the best practices to keep children safe.

XinQi Dong,MD, MPH

XinQi Dong, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, Behavioral Sciences and Gerontological Nursing at the Rush University Medical Center. He received his BA from the University of Chicago, his MPH from the University of Illinois at Chicago, his medical degree from Rush Medical College, and his clinical training in internal medicine and geriatric from Yale University Medical Center.

Having emigrated from China, Dr. Dong has a long standing interest in human rights issues and social justice for vulnerable populations. Dr. Dong focuses on healthy aging and violence prevention in the communities and works to improve community understanding of the prevention, detection, and intervention strategies for elder abuse. He also works to promote civic engagement to advocate for these issues. Dr. Dong was instrumental in the Chicago Wellbeing Task Force and Legislative Task Force, which helped pass the IL Elder Abuse Act into law. He helped to guide the task force in its efforts to provide educational resources and training to 50,000 city workers, grass-roots organizations, and local social services agencies on the issues of vulnerable seniors and elder abuse.

Dr. Dong has partnered with various community organizations, initiated a community advisory board, created an innovative &"Saturday with Senior” program to provide health promotion exercise training, and provided relevant advice on community health issues in a column called &"Ask Dr. Dong” in a local newspaper. He is actively involved in many other advocacy organizations and continues to work to pass and implement legislative initiatives related to elder abuse. Dr. Dong currently serves as an APSA Congressional Policy Fellow/ Health and Aging Policy Fellow in DC to further advocate for the issues of elder abuse and neglect at the national level.

In addition to his advocacy work, Dr. Dong has conducted extraordinarily diverse research, addressing a range of issues that is truly exceptional. His recent research has focused on the epidemiological studies of elder abuse, including overall mortality and cardiovascular related mortality. He has written extensively on psychosocial factors affecting the elderly suffering elder abuse and on the barriers encountered by minorities in the health care system. He highlights the potential of health care professionals to acknowledge and effectively make a positive social impact by addressing this important—but frequently under-acknowledged—issue.

Dr. Dong is a true innovator in his advocacy work, and he strives not only to satisfy scientific curiosity, but also to help care for the patient and inform practice and policy changes that ultimately aim to promote health and wellbeing. He has made invaluable contributions to the public good both by bettering the lives of the elderly and by honoring a broad obligation to society that extends far beyond the traditional physician-patient relationship. We are proud to have the opportunity to publicly recognize such important work.

Deborah Frank,MD

Dr. Deborah Frank, MD, is a Professor of Pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Frank received her undergraduate degree from Radcliffe College and earned her MD from Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency at Children’s Hospital in Seattle.

Dr. Frank comes from a family of advocates and has welcomed this role since the very beginning of her career. At Harvard Medical School, she was the sole student representative and sole woman on a committee to evaluate psycho-surgery, which a noted neurosurgeon at MGH had suggested was the solution to African American riots. During her training in Seattle, Dr. Frank began her work caring for children with the disorder known then as &"Failure to Thrive.” Although at the time it was believed that &"Failure to Thrive” was caused by a psychiatric aberration in the mother, Dr. Frank recognized that it was in fact a manifestation of malnutrition and that innumerable children were unnecessarily suffering from one of the most preventable and treatable developmental impairments in the world.

Dr. Frank is a true visionary. She founded and continues to direct the &"Grow Clinic” at Boston Medical Center, a multidisciplinary specialty clinic where she cares for children who suffer from malnutrition resulting from their family’s lack of access to food. The Grow Clinic has served over 2000 children and has become a national model. Dr. Frank also founded a food pantry at the hospital, which has grown so much that it now serves all families at the BMC, not just those in her clinic.

Dr. Frank also serves as the leader of a multisite collaborative now called Children’s HealthWatch. For the past 12 years, this organization has been extremely successful in conducting research on the impact of public policies on young children’s health and development and has disseminated its results to policymakers and advocacy organizations nationwide. Furthermore, Dr. Frank has spoken on these issues to a large number of national conferences, congressional staff briefings, federal agencies, and congressional committees.

Recently, Dr. Frank has taken on the issue of the impact of intrauterine cocaine exposure on children, opposing criminal sanctions for women who choose to continue their pregnancies while suffering from an addictive disorder. She has testified in a case that eventually went to the Supreme Court and has become an active teacher and expert in this field.

Dr. Frank has contributed to the public good through her tireless advocacy on the part of vulnerable children in underserved families, actively caring for the families she treats in her clinic and diligently campaigning that policymakers do what is right for all children. We are proud to honor Dr. Frank, who brings an admirable personal and professional credibility to the table that allows her to bear witness to the impacts of hunger in a way that few others can.

Michael Fiore,MD MPH MBA

Michael Fiore, professor of medicine, founded and has served as Director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI) since it was established in 1992. He is a clinically active general internist, treating patients for tobacco dependence, a nationally recognized expert on tobacco, and an author of numerous articles, chapters, and books on cigarette smoking.

Fiore served as chair of the panel that produced the United States Public Health Service (PHS) Clinical Practice Guideline: Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence, in 2000 which provides a gold standard for healthcare providers. That PHS Guideline was updated and published in 2008 with the simultaneous endorsement of 58 leading medical and public health organizations. He co-directed The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Program Offices, Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care and Addressing Tobacco in Healthcare Research Network.

Dr. Fiore chaired the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Subcommittee on Tobacco Cessation of the Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health that produced a comprehensive plan for promoting tobacco cessation in the United States. In July 2003, he received an Innovators in Combating Substance Abuse Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 2005, Dr. Fiore was asked by the United States Justice Department as part of their landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry to craft a $130 billion, 25-year plan to assist 33 million smokers to quit.

Dr. Fiore was co-principal investigator for a five-year NIH-funded Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center (TTURC) grant designed to understand tobacco dependence in order to prevent relapse to smoking. In September, 2004, he began his role as co-principal investigator of a second TTURC grant, seeking to examine tobacco dependence treatment and outcomes with an eye to determining the effectiveness of various treatments and matching those treatments to smokers wishing to quit. In September 2009, he begins serving as principal investigator for the third NIH P50 grant awarded to UW-CTRI, Engineering Effective Interventions for Tobacco Use: A Translational Laboratory.

After graduating from Bowdoin College, Dr. Fiore completed medical school at Northwestern University in Chicago and his internal medicine training at Boston City Hospital. His postgraduate education included a Masters of Public Health from Harvard University. Dr. Fiore received additional training as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer for the United States Centers for Disease Control where he also completed a Preventive Medicine residency program at the United States Office on Smoking and Health before coming to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2009, Dr. Fiore earned a Masters degree from the University of Wisconsin School of Business.