Title: Oliver Fein, MD - Candidate for APHA Executive Board
Author:
Section/SPIG: Medical Care
Issue Date:
Personal Statement
APHA is a voluntary, national organization that works to improve public health in the United States and around the world. Disparities in resources and health among demographic groups and geographic regions threaten the health of the public. Recent policies to provide tax cuts for the rich, to reduce federal social expenditures through block grants to states, and to limit the role of the federal government to its military and foreign policy activities, challenge public health in the United States. In response, APHA must continue to build diverse membership from frontline public health practitioners employed by governments, voluntary associations, and academic institutions. We need to expand our multi-disciplinary complexion with members from all health professions and their related advocates in law, non-profit organizations and the community. APHA must continue to advocate policies to eliminate racial and other disparities in health care, to build public health infrastructure, to bring about world peace, and to create publicly funded and administered universal health care in the U.S. Internally, APHA’s basic building blocks are its Affiliates, Sections, SPIGs and Caucuses. Organizational improvement should nurture and strengthen these units. The Governing Council should remain the representative elected body of the basic building blocks. The Executive Board should formulate strategic priorities for approval by the Governing Council and participate in policy implementation, drawing on expertise from Affiliates, Sections, SPIGs and Caucuses. The Executive Board must work transparently. I bring to the Executive Board considerable experience within APHA, having served twice on the Governing Council, as Chair of the Medical Care Section (1997-99), as a member of the Committee on Refining the Policy Process and the Nominating Committee (1999-2001), and as member of the Search Committee for the Executive Director (2002). I look forward to the opportunity to expand my service to APHA, the premier public health organization in the United States.
Brief Biographical Sketch
I am a practicing general internist, academic administrator and public health advocate. As Associate Dean for Affiliations and Professor of Clinical Medicine and Public Health at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, my primary work involves diversifying the clinical educational experience for Cornell students through placements in poverty communities, public hospitals and public health agencies. Other responsibilities include chairing the New York Metro Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and the Health System Reform Cluster of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM). Since joining APHA in 1980, I have been active in the Medical Care Section, first as Chair of the Committee for Health Services Research (1990-94), then as Chair of the Medical Care Section (1997-99). Additional service has been on the Editorial Board of the journal Medical Care; APHA Governing Council (1988-90 and 1999-2001); the APHA Committee on Refining the Policy Process (2000), whose recommendations were adopted by the Governing Council; APHA Nominating Committee (2000-01); and the Search Committee for APHA Executive Director (2002). My career, which has been devoted to health care reform, includes three years in the Student Health Organization (SHO), four years as a Research Associate at the Health Policy Advisory Center (Health-PAC), and 17 years at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center reorganizing health care delivery to the community and introducing public health practice into the curriculum through the Health of the Public Program. In the year before coming to Cornell, I was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in the office of Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. I really enjoy combining public health and health policy change with the provision of individual patient care.