Advocacy Panel Discussion: Federal Level Advocacy

Speaker: Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, MD, MPP, MHS

Reshma Ramachandran, MD, MPP, MHS is an Assistant Professor, board-certified family physician, and health services researcher. Her research focuses on the realignment of incentives for healthcare stakeholders including pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and universities towards prioritizing equitable patient access to safe, effective health technologies.

She co-directs the Yale Collaboration for Regulatory Rigor, Integrity, and Transparency, an interdisciplinary initiative aligning research on medical product evaluation, approval, and coverage with the goal of advancing policies that improve patient outcomes. Prior to this role, Reshma worked as research faculty as part of the Innovation + Design Enabling Access (IDEA) Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she focused on policies to address the global challenge of antimicrobial resistance and unaffordable access to prescription drugs.

Dr. Ramachandran trained in both medicine at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University and in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She completed her family medicine residency at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center and health services research and policy fellowship at the National Clinician Scholars Program at Yale. Previously, she served as the first PharmFree Fellow with the American Medical Student Association focused on removing the undue influence of pharmaceutical companies on prescribing behavior and medical education.

She currently chairs the FDA Task Force for Doctors for America. She also is the Board President of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) North America.

Speaker: Dr. Cedric Dark, MD, MPH

Dr. Cedric Dark is an Associate Professor in the Henry J. N. Taub Department of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. He currently is on the Board of Directors for Doctors for America, the Board of Trustees for Semester at Sea, and is the Medical Editor-in-Chief for the monthly publication ACEP Now.

One of emergency medicine’s Top 45 Under 45 and on Elemental’s List of 50 Experts to Trust in a Pandemic, Dark is a trusted voice on health care and health policy. He has written numerous OpEds (Baltimore Sun, The Guardian, MedPage Today, Houston Chronicle, WIRED) and has given media interviews for print, radio, and television including NPR, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and BBC World News.

When not saving lives at the bedside, Dr. Dark strives to save them through policy. His policy experience includes work for the United States House of Representatives, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the 2020 Joe Biden Campaign.

Although he knows how to rescue a patient from the brink of death after suffering a gunshot wound, his first book Under The Gun: An ER Doctor’s Cure for America’s Gun Epidemic explores how we can save more Americans’ lives before the bullet leaves the gun.

Speaker: Alyssa Morrison, JD

Prior to joining L4GG (Lawyers for Good Government), Alyssa spent 5 years working in constitutional impact litigation at the federal level with the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America (CLCMA). In her role at CLCMA, Alyssa’s practice was focused on challenging racial and religious discrimination in federal trial and appellate courts across the country.

Alyssa is admitted to practice in the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeal and is a member in good standing with the Texas State Bar. During law school, Alyssa was the recipient of the Judge Elmo B. Hunter Legal Clinic for Victims of Crimes Against Women scholarship, awarded for her work with asylum seekers and refugees at the Karnes City ICE Detention Center and as a student attorney with YMCA International Services. She holds a B.A. from Texas A&M University and a J.D. from SMU Dedman School of law.

Alyssa brings her passion for individual liberty and her experience in constitutional law and civil rights with her to L4GG.