Educating and activating health professionals to work toward health equity.

Our Board

Susie Emmert, MSW, LGSW

Susie Emmert is the Senior Director of Advocacy and Public Policy for Hennepin Healthcare System. Susie represents Hennepin Healthcare at the county, state and federal levels of government, advocating on behalf of the thousands of patients served each year, over 7,000 staff and the many safety-net services provided in our community, with an emphasis on Medicaid and public programs. Susie’s experience includes working in the community as a social worker in multiple capacities. Susie was an adjunct instructor for nine years teaching public policy and the history of social welfare to graduate social work students at Augsburg and St. Catherine’s University. Susie holds a B.A. in Social Work from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio and a Master of Social Work degree from Augsburg University in Minneapolis.

Email: susieemmert@gmail.com

Ryan Jelinek, DO

Dr. Jelinek a practicing Internal Medicine physician and Clinical Informatics (CI) fellow at Hennepin Healthcare. His medicine practice spans both ambulatory and hospitalist work. He has recently begun a telemedicine training program for residents and faculty at HCMC. His CI work is focused on telehealth and EHR workflow optimization. He has championed telemedicine equity work at Hennepin Healthcare and more broadly in the Twin Cities community. He sits on several healthcare equity focused committees at Hennepin Healthcare. Ryan also sits on the executive board of the AMIA College of Informatics Fellows where he helps guide CI fellows on a national level to the importance of focusing the equity lens on our work. He graduated from the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his Internal Medicine residency at Hennepin Healthcare. Ryan is originally from Wisconsin and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison. He is a proud husband and father to two children. When not practicing medicine or thinking about the future of medicine, he enjoys being outdoors playing golf, pickleball and skiing. 

E-mail: Ryan.Jelinek@hcmed.org

Sakina Naqvi, MD

Dr. Sakina Naqvi grew up in Karachi, Pakistan and attended Dow Medical College. Her interest in health outreach stemmed in her childhood when she regularly accompanied her father, also a physician, to rural areas to screen for chronic diseases and subsequently collect baseline data to establish a national registry. She moved to the United States after her medical education and worked at the Chronic Disease Research Group at Hennepin County Medical Center where she was a junior investigator and looked at specific Cardiovascular diseases in End Stage Renal Disease through the lens of Medicare population. She completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center and was a Chief resident upon completion of her residency. She then pursued a fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care at the University of Minnesota and joined the HealthEast Care System, now M Health Fairview, upon graduation. She currently serves as the Pulmonary Service Line Director at M Health Fairview and is also an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Recently, she was appointed the Minnesota Department of Health’s point person, in the Vaping Induced Lung Injury in adults. She remains strongly connected to her roots in Pakistan and is currently involved in helping set up a hospital that will focus on renal diseases in conjunction with the Karachi University in Karachi, Pakistan.

Email: Naqvi.sakina@gmail.com

Cuong Pham, MD - President 

Dr. Cuong Pham is internal medicine and pediatrics trained. He was born in Vietnam and escaped as a refugee at an early age. He was raised in Little Canada, Minnesota and is a proud life-long Golden Gopher from his undergraduate education to residency training. Currently he splits his time doing inpatient medicine at the University of Minnesota and primary care at the Community University Health Care Center.  He is an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Minnesota and is the Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee for Graduate Medical Education. He has a focus on immigrant health and has worked abroad from South Africa to Vietnam. He is a licensed Buprenorphine provider, treating patients with opiate addiction. He is also interested in further understanding the impact of opiates on our marginalized populations.

Emails: pham0079@umn.edu OR president@mdheq.org

Elizabeth Rogers, MD, MAS - Secretary

Dr. Elizabeth (Beth) Rogers is an Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota (UMN). She works as a primary care physician at the Community University Health Care Center, a safety-net clinic in Minneapolis. She also conducts research as part of the UMN Program in Health Disparities Research. Her research focuses on improving primary care systems to support patients with social vulnerability and complex chronic diseases, particularly diabetes. She has studied models such as peer coaches and community health workers, and enjoys projects done in collaboration with community and other stakeholders. She has worked with communities domestically and in Central America and Mexico, and served as a board member of Doctors for Global Health for nine years. Beth is a graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine. After finishing her combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency training at the Harvard Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Boston Children’s Hospital program, she completed the Primary Care Research Fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. 

Email: docelizabethrogers@gmail.com