Dora Hughes, a Vanderbilt School of Medicine alumna and counselor for science and public health to Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, will discuss “Achieving Health Equity: An Update on Federal Policies, Programs and Progress” from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 7, at Meharry Medical College.
The talk will take place at Meharry’s Learning Resource Center, Lecture Hall 4. Lunch will be provided with an RSVP to aharmon@mmc.edu. The lecture is part of the Signature 2012 National Scholars’ Current Issues in Health Policy Seminar Series sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy, a partnership between Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt.
Prior to joining the Department of Health and Human Services, Hughes worked as an aide to then-Sen. Barack Obama and was a key health policy adviser during his 2008 presidential campaign. She advised him on a broad range of health issues and helped to develop his national policy and legislative agenda. She represented the campaign at health-industry conferences, speaking about the possible shape of health care reform in the Obama administration. After the 2008 election, President Obama named Hughes to his transition team as one of only two physicians on his Health Care Policy Working Group.
Hughes previously served as deputy director for health for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in the U.S. Senate. Prior to working on Capitol Hill, she served as senior program officer at The Commonwealth Fund, a national health foundation in New York City.
Hughes completed medical school at Vanderbilt and a medical residency at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. She is board certified in internal medicine. She also was awarded a Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy and earned a Master of Public Health degree at the Harvard University School of Public Health.