The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education received six federal grants for more than $2.8 million to support its Geriatrics, Family Medicine, and Internal Medicine Residency programs.

The grants were awarded through the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Program (THCGME). Founded 50 years ago as the Scranton-Temple Residency Program to address a physician shortage in Northeast Pennsylvania and across the nation, what is now known as The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education has grown into one of the nation’s largest Health Resources and Services Administration-funded Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortiums. Today, it integrates patient care delivery, workforce development, and innovation to be the leading model of primary healthcare in America.

“We are profoundly grateful for this nearly $2.84 million federal investment through the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration’s Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program. Most importantly, this is an investment in the patients, families, and communities our physician learners are privileged to serve,” said Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO of The Wright Center. “These vital resources will strengthen our geriatrics, family medicine, and internal medicine training programs and help us to continue preparing competent and compassionate physicians in the community-based settings where their service is needed most.

“For The Wright Center, this is about far more than funding residency positions. It is about sustaining and renewing the primary care physician workforce, expanding access to essential primary health services for everyone, and ensuring our communities have the physicians and essential health systems they need today and for generations to come.”

Last year, U.S. Representative Robert Bresnahan Jr. joined colleagues in sending a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson urging for a multi-year reauthorization of the THCGME Program, which would support funding for teaching health centers across the country. 

“The Wright Center understands that improving healthcare is about more than putting a doctor in an exam room,” said Rep. Bresnahan. “It means training physicians who understand the communities they serve and making sure patients have access to primary care, behavioral health services, substance use treatment, and continued support. These grants will help The Wright Center continue that mission and build a stronger healthcare workforce right here in our region.”

Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO of The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, center, accepts the inaugural 2026 Program Leader of the Year Award from the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research’s Sheps GME Technical Assistance Center during the Rural and Health Center National Graduate Medical Education Conference.

Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO of The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, received the inaugural 2026 Program Leader of the Year Award from the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research’s Sheps GME (Graduate Medical Education) Technical Assistance Center, which runs two federal technical assistance centers supporting the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Rural Residency Planning and Development and Teaching Health Center programs.

Dr. Thomas-Hemak accepted the award during the 2026 Rural and Health Center National GME Conference, held Aug. 31-Sept. 2, 2026, at Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Rockville, Maryland.

The award recognizes an exemplary leader in graduate medical education who demonstrates exceptional leadership, advances innovation and continuous improvement, and shows an unwavering commitment to developing the physician workforce and expanding training opportunities.

Dr. Thomas-Hemak is a quintuple board-certified primary care physician in internal medicine, pediatrics, addiction medicine, obesity medicine, and nutrition. Alongside her executive leadership, she continues to care for generations of patients and families at The Wright Center for Community Health Mid Valley in Jermyn, which is her hometown and the Birthplace of First Aid in America.

A proud graduate of Scranton Preparatory School and the University of Scranton, Dr. Thomas-Hemak earned her medical degree as a Michael DeBakey Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, then completed Harvard’s Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Residency Program in Boston. Guided by a profound sense of service to her community roots, she returned to Northeast Pennsylvania to practice primary care. She joined The Wright Center in 2001, became its president in 2007, and assumed the role of CEO in 2012.

Dr. Thomas-Hemak has transformed The Wright Center’s approach to graduate medical education while advancing community-based physician training nationally. Under her leadership, The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education has grown from the Scranton-Temple Residency Program, a single Internal Medicine residency established by Dr. Robert Wright and others in 1976 through a $1 million federal Bureau of Health Manpower grant, into an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited Sponsoring Institution with seven residency and fellowship programs and a foundational partner in one of the nation’s largest Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortiums.

Today, The Wright Center trains nearly 200 resident and fellow physicians annually, along with more than 200 interprofessional learners, who help deliver comprehensive, affordable, compassionate, whole-person primary and preventive health services to more than 39,000 patients annually across The Wright Center for Community Health’s 15 Teaching Health Centers in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne, and Wyoming counties and through its mobile medical and dental unit, Driving Better Health. Under Dr. Thomas-Hemak’s leadership, The Wright Center for Community Health earned full Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) designation in August 2026, which unlocks significant federal resources for the region and vastly improves access to high-quality, whole-person primary and preventive health services for patients and families.

Central to Dr. Thomas-Hemak’s work has been the development of The Wright Center’s Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortium, a proven, scalable, and replicable community-owned and community-governed model that integrates physician and interprofessional healthcare workforce development with the delivery of healthcare services in underserved communities. The model is built on the principle that communities should be empowered to develop and sustain the healthcare workforce they need while strengthening the systems of care in which those professionals train and ultimately serve.

“Dr. Thomas-Hemak has spent her career challenging us to think differently about what graduate medical education can and should accomplish,” said Scott E. Schermerhorn, Esq., chair of The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education Board of Directors. “Her legacy is not simply measured by the programs she has built or the physicians she has trained. It is measured by the capacity she has created in communities to build, sustain, and steward their own healthcare workforce. She has demonstrated that graduate medical education can be more than a system for training physicians. It can be an instrument for strengthening communities, expanding access to care, and changing the trajectory of health for generations.”

One of the clearest examples of that approach was The Wright Center’s National Family Medicine Residency, a pioneering multistate residency program launched in 2013 in collaboration with A.T. Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona and Federally Qualified Health Centers: El Rio Health in Arizona, HealthPoint in Washington state, HealthSource of Ohio, and Unity Health Care in Washington, D.C. The program connected geographically dispersed community health centers through shared educational standards, resources, and a commitment to training family physicians in underserved communities.

The National Family Medicine Residency concluded in June 2026 after producing 167 family physicians, 74% of whom practice in medically underserved communities, and expanding primary care access for more than 392,000 patients nationwide. Its legacy continues through FQHC partners that have developed or are developing their own graduate medical education capacity, demonstrating the scalability and sustainability of community-based physician training. HealthPoint and El Rio Health became independent ACGME-accredited Sponsoring Institutions with their own Family Medicine Residency Programs; HealthSource achieved accreditation for a new Family Medicine Residency under The Wright Center’s Sponsoring Institution; and Unity Health Care continues developing similar capacity.

Dr. Thomas-Hemak has also helped advance the Teaching Health Center movement nationally through her leadership, advocacy, federal service, scholarly work, and presentations focused on physician workforce development and the social mission of graduate medical education. She is a founding board member of the American Association of Teaching Health Centers, which represents community-based teaching health centers that train primary care physicians, and serves as governor for the Eastern Region of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American College of Physicians (PA-ACP), the nation’s largest medical-specialty organization.

In March 2026, she was appointed to serve a two-year term on the 18-member Healthcare Advisory Committee, convened by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, to help guide national health policy and program innovation to strengthen care delivery and financing, improve quality, reduce administrative burden, and focus healthcare on patients. She was also appointed in 2026 to serve on the Pennsylvania Association of Community Health Centers (PACHC) Board of Directors.

She serves on numerous local, regional, and national healthcare and medical education nonprofit governing boards, cross-sector committees, and workgroups, including the federally funded Partnership for Quality Measurement’s Endorsement & Maintenance Committee Advisory Group on Cost and Efficiency, which brings together healthcare experts to evaluate and endorse performance measures.

She is a founding member of the consortium that established the Scranton-based

Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, the immediate past chair and executive committee member of the Northeast Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center (NEPA AHEC), co-chair of the Community Health Hub, and an advisory board member of The Institute.

She and her husband, Mark, have three children, Mason, Maya, and Antoinette. She is the daughter of the late William and Johanna Cavalieri Thomas.

For more information about The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, visit TheWrightCenter.org or call 570-230-0019.

Laura Spadaro, vice president of primary care and public health policy for The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, has been named as one of Pennsylvania’s Trailblazers in Healthcare by City & State Pennsylvania, a multimedia news organization dedicated to covering the state’s politics and policy.

The list recognizes public officials, hospital and healthcare executives, nonprofit leaders, union leaders, academics, and others making a difference by framing, influencing, and changing the healthcare industry.

Previously, Spadaro served as executive advisor to the Pennsylvania secretary of health, focusing on strategic initiatives and cross-agency priorities.

“Laura’s deep understanding of health policy combined with her ability to build meaningful relationships with policymakers and partners makes her an invaluable advocate for our patients, clinicians, and communities,” said Jennifer Walsh, Esq., senior vice president of enterprise integrity, chief legal and governance officer at The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education. “She brings a thoughtful, informed, and persistent voice to some of the most important healthcare policy discussions facing our nation, always keeping in focus the real-world impact on access to care and the people we are privileged to serve. This recognition is a well-deserved acknowledgment of Laura’s leadership and the difference she continues to make.” 

The Wright Center presented the inaugural Nursing Excellence Award to Taylor Spencer, a licensed professional nurse at The Wright Center for Community Health Mid Valley, during a ceremony. Participating in the presentation of the award, from left, are Kelsey Lemoncelli, deputy chief nursing officer; Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO; Spencer, and David Hall, vice president and enterprise chief operating officer.

A licensed professional nurse at The Wright Center for Community Health Mid Valley received the inaugural Nursing Excellence Award for her exceptional dedication, unwavering commitment, and continuous demonstration of what it means to be an outstanding nurse.

Taylor Spencer accepted the award from David Hall, vice president and enterprise chief operating officer at The Wright Center, at a ceremony at The Wright Center for Community Health Scranton on Wednesday, Sept. 30. 

“The idea for this award came from recognizing the important role nursing leadership plays in the success of our enterprise,” Hall said. “Nurses are often at the center of patient care, team development, and day-to-day operations, and strong nursing leadership has an impact that extends far beyond one department or one shift.”

The Wright Center will present the Nursing Excellence Award quarterly to celebrate nurses who set the standard for exceptional leadership. Kari Machelli, chief nursing and community engagement officer at The Wright Center; Marianne Linko, deputy chief operating officer at The Wright Center; and Tiffany Richmond, nurse manager at The Wright Center, nominated Spencer. Their nominations cited her meticulous attention to detail, including her chronic care management duties, and the support she provides to new nurses during their training.

Spencer, who began working at The Wright Center in November 2024, said she was grateful for the recognition.

“I feel honored to be the first person to receive the Nursing Excellence award,” she said. “All of the nurses at The Wright Center go above and beyond for our patients and our clinical care teams every day, and this award recognizes that hard work.”

Gastroenterologist Dr. Stephen Eskin, center, and his band perform at The Theatre at North in Scranton in March for the one-of-a-kind community concert, ‘Louder Than Cancer!’ The event raised awareness of the importance of colon cancer screenings and won a SCOPY award from the American College of Gastroenterology.

The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education-sponsored concert at The Theatre at North in Scranton, aimed at spreading the word about the importance of colon cancer screenings, won an award from the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG).

The one-of-a-kind community concert, “Louder Than Cancer!,” was organized by Dr. Vikas Khurana, program director of The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education’s (TWCGME) Gastroenterology Fellowship Program, and TWCGME Gastroenterology fellows Drs. Peter Iskander and Udit Asija, who are also graduates of TWCGME’s Internal Medicine Residency Program. About 200 people attended the concert, which featured an hour-long performance by Rocdoc and the Healers, led by gastroenterologist Dr. Stephen Eskin. All songs, including cover songs with rewritten lyrics and original songs, included information about the importance of colon cancer screening and gastroenterological health.

Colorectal cancer is the fourth most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, according to the Colorectal Cancer Alliance. In many cases, routine screening can prevent it or catch it early. The Wright Center was the event’s platinum sponsor, reinforcing its commitment to prevention, education, and community well-being.

Wonderful Women Breast Cancer Support Group Committee members, from left, are Helayna Szescila, deputy chief governance officer; John Vito Powell, board and Title IX coordinator; Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO; Mary Marrara, chair of The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement Board and secretary of The Wright Center for Community Health Board; and Holly Przasnyski, director of The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement and coordinator of The Wright Centers for Community Health and Patient & Community Engagement Boards of Directors.

The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement will host the Wonderful Women Breast Cancer Support Group program on Friday, Oct. 16, from 6:30-8 p.m. in the auditorium at The Wright Center for Community Health Scranton, 501 S. Washington Ave.

Dr. Lisa Thomas, an oncologist with Hematology & Oncology Associates of Northeastern Pennsylvania, will deliver this year’s keynote address. Several local breast cancer survivors will also share their stories.

Focused on education, advocacy, and addressing barriers to care, The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement assists the region’s most vulnerable populations, including those experiencing poverty, homelessness, food insecurity, limited educational and employment opportunities, lack of transportation, social isolation, and other hardships. Guided by a board of patients and local professionals, it leads community initiatives such as health fairs, food and blood drives, and school supply giveaways. Its signature fundraising event, the annual Dr. William Waters Golf Tournament, provides vital resources to sustain its programs.