The BRI Blog

Rafael Fonseca, MD, is the Getz Family Professor of Cancer, Professor of Medicine, Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine, Director for Innovation and Transformational Relationships, Interim Executive Director of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, and a consultant in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. He earned his MD at Universidad Anahuac, Mexico. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Miami, FL, and a fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, Rochester, MN. He was named a clinical investigator for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fund. He is a visiting healthcare fellow at the Goldwater Institute. Dr Fonseca’s practice has focused on the diagnosis and treatment of plasma cell disorders and leading the multiple myeloma team in its efforts to develop a better understanding of the disease and its impact on patients. In his laboratory, Dr Fonseca has led his team of researchers in concentrating on the genetic nature of the clonal cells of plasma cell disorders, myeloma bone disease, prognostic markers, and development of new therapies for the disease.

Throughout his training and career, Dr Fonseca has received numerous awards and honors, including the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Clinical Investigator Award, and the International Waldenström Macroglobulinemia Research Award. Most notably, he is a Mayo Clinic Distinguished Investigator, the highest academic distinction given to investigators at his institution. Dr Fonseca holds memberships and serves in positions for organizations such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society of Hematology, American Association for Cancer Research, and the . Dr Fonseca serves as reviewer and in editorial capacities for medical publications. He has given many national and international presentations as a visiting professor, and has authored numerous articles. Watch Now!

Dr. Singleton is a board-certified anesthesiologist and immediate past president of the AAPS – Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. After being told “they don’t take Negroes at Stanford, she graduated from Stanford and earned her MD at UCSF Medical School. Dr. Singleton completed 2 years of Surgery residency at University of California at San Francisco Medical Center, and her Anesthesia residency at Harvard’s Beth Israel Hospital. She was on the faculty at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland before returning to California for private practice at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley. While still working in the operating room, she attended UC Berkeley Law School focusing on constitutional and administrative law. She interned at the National Health Law Project, and practiced insurance and health law. Dr. Singleton has published numerous articles, given presentations on health policy, and had many radio and television appearances. She started a blood pressure screening clinic at her church and make-shift clinics in two rural villages in El Salvador. Dr. Singleton ran for Congress in 2012.

Watch Dr. Marilyn Singleton talk to BRI about the cornavirus pandemic, masks and healthcare here.

Dr. Corba is owner of Green Hills Direct Family Care in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania. In January 2016, Dr. Corba successfully transitioned her thirteen year-old, solo, independent, insurance-based office to DPC. She is an early innovator, champion and national leader for independent Direct Primary Care practices. She is co-founder and active Board Member of DPC Action, and formed a non-profit group called the Pennsylvania Direct Primary Care Association® to increase awareness of DPC and educate about the benefits DPC brings to patients in Pennsylvania.

Listen to Dr. Kimberly Corba offer her deep knowledge of how DPC changed her path, and how students can affect change in healthcare policy today.

Sarah Anderson, Director of Policy, FreedomWorks, discusses with BRI chapter leader Rufus Sweeney and Rebecca Kiessling, BRI Director of Programs, the topic of Patients Need Doctors, Not Bureaucrats. [Watch it NOW]

For decades, medical students have been overwhelmed by the idea that big government and big cronyism is just the natural state of health care in America. But, it doesn’t have to be this way. Rebecca Kiessling and Rufus Sweeney of the Benjamin Rush Institute join us to talk about health care freedom and how their organization is bringing free market ideas to the next generation of doctors!

Acton Institute article about 21st Century recommendations from Dr. Rush and other 18th and 19th Century Physicians. [Read the article]

Dr. Leah Houston is the founder of HPEC, and a board-certified Emergency Physician. While practicing emergency medicine across the US for nearly 10 years she recognized a common problem: uncompensated administrative burdens related to physician employment and credentialing are a leading cause of administrative waste and physician burn out. Watch the video NOW!

She realized that distributed ledger technology could solve the obstructive regulatory problems in healthcare, by creating a decentralized community of physicians. She began working on the project and named it HPEC – the Humanitarian Physicians Empowerment Community. HPEC is building a platform that will give every physician a self-sovereign digital identity attached to their credentials in order to create a democratic digital physicians guild. HPEC will streamline the current antiquated and laborious process of credentialing, reduce administrative waste, improve access to care and give physicians sovereign ownership of their data and employment rights. The organization will also create an opportunity for physicians to communicate more efficiently about policy, and practice in order to improve patient care.

In presenting a solution that has the potential to alleviate the administrative waste for health systems, government and practicing physicians she is a recognized and requested national speaker on the topic of decentralized identity as it relates to healthcare. Her work was featured as a part of the first HIMSS Blockchain and Healthcare Textbook, published in 2019. A lifelong advocate, innovator and investor she has also spent lobbying for public policy and healthcare reform. She understands the problems that plague the healthcare system from the inside and out, and has dedicated her time to repairing the current global healthcare crisis. HPEC will restore physician autonomy to the practice of medicine, will begin in the United States and expand.