Jeffrey Baker, MD, PhD
Director, Program in the History of Medicine, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine
Professor of Pediatrics
Associate Clinical Professor of History
Duke University School of Medicine

Jeff Baker directs the History of Medicine Program at the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine and teaches in all four years of the medical student curriculum. On the national level, Dr. Baker chairs the Historical Archives
Advisory Committee to the Pediatric History Center for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and edits a quarterly historical feature in the journal Pediatrics. Dr. Baker’s work as a medical historian has concentrated on medical technology, ethics and child health. His current research focuses on the history of autism.

Margaret Bowers, DNP, RN
Associate Professor, Duke University School of Nursing
Nurse Practitioner, Cardiovascular Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine

Margaret (Midge) Bowers is Faculty Coordinator of the Adult Nurse Practitioner Instructional Area and Lead Faculty of the Adult Nurse Practitioner-Cardiovascular specialty in the School of Nursing Master of Science in Nursing program. She is an Associate in the American College of Cardiology and has over 30 years of experience in cardiac patient care. Bowers focuses her clinical practice on congestive heart failure. She also has extensive clinical experience in cardiology and critical care transport. In her current research, she aims to identify the relationship between daily weights and early symptom recognition in patients with systolic and diastolic heart failure and evaluate the relationship of social support, medication and weight monitoring adherence, and symptom perceptions with heart failure-related hospital readmission and mortality.

Cynthia A Connolly, PhD, RN, PNP, FAAN
Associate Professor of Nursing                                                                                                  
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Cynthia Connolly has worked as both a pediatric nurse practitioner and clinical nurse specialist and has taught nursing for more than thirty years. Her research analyzes the forces that have shaped children’s health care delivery and family policy in the United States and currently focuses on providing an historical overview and critique of children and pharmaceuticals (therapeutic medicinal chemistry) in the United States from World War II to the present day. Dr. Connolly’s award-winning first book, Saving Sickly Children: The Tuberculosis Preventorium in American Life, 1909–1970, analyzed an early twentieth century child-focused intervention, the preventorium.

Michael Cuffe, MD
President and CEO of Physician Services, Hospital Corporation of America

Mike Cuffe is the Chief Executive Officer and President of Physician Services at HCA Holdings, Inc. HCA’s Physician Services organization provides comprehensive practice management in support of HCA’s overall clinical operations. In this role, Dr. Cuffe works to promote the organization’s goal of providing high-quality healthcare services and to carry out its market-based physician network plan. Before joining Physician Services, Dr. Cuffe served as Vice President for Ambulatory Services and Chief Medical Officer and in various leadership roles for the Duke University Health System. He trained in internal medicine and cardiology, and his research interests focus on medical safety reporting in clinical trials, heart failure hospitalization, and systems of medical care.

Farr Curlin, MD
Josiah C. Trent Professor of Medical Humanities, Duke University School of Medicine
Co-Director, Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative, Duke University

Farr Curlin founded and was Co-Director of the Program on Medicine and Religion at the University of Chicago before moving to Duke in 2014. At Duke, Dr. Curlin practices palliative medicine and works with colleagues in the Trent Center and the Divinity School to develop opportunities for education and scholarship at the intersection of theology, medicine and culture. He has authored over one hundred articles and book chapters dealing with the moral and spiritual dimensions of medical practice. Dr. Curlin’s scholarship focuses on the relevance of religion for the practice of medicine, the moral and professional formation of clinicians, and care for patients at the end of life.

Maureen Darcey, CNM
Director of Midwifery Services, Women’s Birth & Wellness Center, Chapel Hill, NC

Maureen Darcey, who has served women for her entire career, founded the Women’s Birth & Wellness Center in 2003. As a midwifery leader in North Carolina, she served as midwifery program director for Piedmont Health Services, chair of the NC American College of Nurse Midwives, and chair of the NC Midwifery Joint Committee. She mentors CNM students from around the world and is one of the national coordinators for American Association of Birth Centers “How to Start a Birth Center” workshop.

Kristene Diggins, FAANP, DNP, MBA
Corporate Senior Educator, CVS Caremark – MinuteClinic

Kristene Diggins is a Family Nurse Practitioner with over 10 years of practice experience. She has worked for eight years in Convenient Care healthcare delivery, managing national professional practice initiatives for nurse practitioners and their collaboration with physicians and pharmacists. Kristene enjoys writing inspirational nursing stories, and publishes a regular column in two nursing journals.

Brian Forrest, MD
Founder and CEO of Access Healthcare, Apex, NC
Direct Primary Care pioneer

Brian Forrest is a pioneer in the Direct Primary Care Model, having originated the Micropractice DPC Model over 13 years ago. He teaches, lectures and consults extensively about the model for individuals, medical schools, health systems, and practices. Dr. Forrest practices family and community medicine. He is an American Society of Hypertension Certified Hypertension Specialist and his special interests include management of chronic diseases like diabetes and high cholesterol.

Ross McKinney, Jr., MD
Director, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine
Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases
Duke University School of Medicine

Ross McKinney is a Professor of Pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases specialist. Since 2007 he has served as Director of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine. His research in bioethics focuses on conflicts of interest, the ethics of sports medicine, and the process of informed consent. He chaired the Steering Committee for the Forum on Conflict of Interest in Academe for the American Association of Medical Colleges, as well as the Clinical Research Ethics Key Function Committee of the NIH Clinical Translational Science Award Collaborative Consortium. He currently serves on the Board of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors.

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine
Editor-in-Chief, Bellevue Literary Review

When Danielle Ofri isn’t seeing patients at Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country, she’s writing about medicine and the doctor-patient connection for the New York Times and other publications. She’s a founder and editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review, the first literary journal to arise in a medical center. She is the author of four books about the world of medicine, including What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine. She is featured in Ken Browne’s upcoming documentary, Why Doctors Write. Her newest book, What Patients Say; What Doctors Hear, will be published in January, 2017.

Kevin Schulman, MD, MBA
Gregory Mario and Jeremy Mario Professor of Business Administration, Duke University
Professor of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine

Kevin Schulman holds multiple leadership appointments at Duke, including associate director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute in the School of Medicine, the country’s largest academic clinical research organization. His research interests include health services research and policy, including access to care and the impact of reimbursement and regulatory policies on clinical practice; health economics and economic evaluation in clinical research; and medical decision making, especially in patients with life-threatening conditions. Dr. Schulman has published nearly 400 articles and book chapters and is the senior associate editor of Health Services Research and a member of the editorial/advisory boards of the American Journal of Medicine and the American Heart Journal.

Mark Siegler, MD
Lindy Bergman Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Surgery
Executive Director, Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence
Director, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics
The University of Chicago Medical Center

Mark Siegler has taught and practiced internal medicine at the University of Chicago for more than 40 years. He is internationally known for his work in the field of medical ethics. His seminal 1981 paper on “A New Model of the Doctor Patient Encounter” was cited extensively by the 1982 President’s Commission as the basis for recommending a shared decision-making approach for doctors and patients, which has now become the standard model for the doctor-patient relationship in the US. Dr. Siegler’s research interests include the ethics of surgical innovation, living–donor organ transplantation, end-of-life care, ethics consultation and decision-making within the doctor-patient relationship.

Kevin Sowers, RN, MSN, FAAN
President
Duke University Hospital

Kevin Sowers began his career in health care as an oncology nurse, and he has kept his focus on the interests of patients while driving organizational initiatives to improve clinical quality, patient satisfaction, work culture, and finance. Mr. Sowers launched the Strength, Hope and Caring program to recognize hospital employees who exemplify those characteristics, and he led several major expansion and renovation projects within Duke University Hospital. He is internationally known for his lectures and writings on the issues of leadership, organizational change, mentorship, and cancer care. His clinical research has focused on human responses to chronic illness.

Donald Taylor, PhD
Associate Professor, Public Policy
Sanford School of Public Policy
Duke University

Don Taylor studies end of life policy with a focus on patient decision making and Medicare hospice policy. He was named a member of the HRSA Negotiated Rulemaking Committee that was created by the Affordable Care Act to reconsider how the federal government identifies Health Professional Shortage Areas and Medically Underserved Areas. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, co-authored two books, and written many columns on health reform for local and national broadcast media. Dr Taylor is currently writing a book on the role of health care policy in developing a long-range balanced budget in the US.