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President and CEO at The Wright Center receives national Lifetime Achievement Award
Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO of The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, received the prestigious 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) in recognition of a 25-year career as a transformative community health center leader, primary care physician, medical educator, and public health advocate.
Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO of The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education
She accepted the award during NACHC’s annual Community Health Institute (CHI) – Community Health Conference & Expo, held Aug. 17-19, 2025, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago in Illinois. NACHC recognized three health center leaders from across the United States with this distinguished award. Dr. Thomas-Hemak was the only honoree from Pennsylvania, joining fellow recipients Dr. James A. Hotz, clinical services director at Albany Area Primary Health Care in Georgia, and Dr. Zettie D. Page III, CEO of Bay Area Community Health in California.
Winners of the NACHC Lifetime Achievement Award are honored for their enduring commitment, dedication, and contributions to the Community Health Center Movement and expansion of access to high-quality, compassionate care for all. First launched as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in the 1960s, community health centers were created to remove barriers to care by providing affordable, community-governed, and needs-responsive health services to underserved populations.
Today, more than 32.5 million Americans receive care through over 1,400 health centers and their satellite sites, including the nearly 35,000 patients that The Wright Center, a nonprofit, sees annually.
“I am deeply honored and humbled to receive this Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Community Health Centers, an organization whose mission and values have so closely aligned with my own throughout my career,” said Dr. Thomas-Hemak, a Jermyn native and resident. “This recognition affirms my personal and professional journey as a first-generation, small-town primary care physician, public health advocate, medical educator, and teaching health center enthusiast, forever energized by the enduring, collective power and spirit of the community health center movement. This award belongs to The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, and to the many patients, families, learners, colleagues, community members, and partners who have shaped, challenged, and inspired me. In a time when health care is increasingly burdened by corporatization and commoditization, our community health centers stand as bright lights, breaking down barriers, integrating whole-person primary health services, and putting people before profits. This honor reinvigorates my commitment to the noble and critical work ahead of us.”
Concurrent with her executive responsibilities, Dr. Thomas-Hemak is also quintuple board-certified in internal medicine, pediatrics, obesity medicine, addiction medicine, and nutrition. She sees generations of patients at The Wright Center for Community Health Mid Valley in Jermyn.
She is a graduate of Scranton Preparatory School and the University of Scranton. After graduating as a Michael DeBakey Scholar from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and completing Harvard’s Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Residency Program in Boston, she returned to Northeast Pennsylvania to serve as a practicing physician, guided by a deep sense of responsibility to the community that raised her. She joined The Wright Center in 2001, becoming president in 2007 and CEO in 2012.
A healer at heart, caring for multiple generations of families, neighbors, and friends, she believes her experiential perspective as a hands-on primary care physician and advocate for patients and families enlightens her executive decision-making.
Championing a people-over-profit philosophy, Dr. Thomas-Hemak has propelled The Wright Center to national prominence through visionary leadership and mission-driven innovation:
- Establishing one of the nation’s largest Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortiums (GME-SNC), funded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Under her leadership, The Wright Center pioneered a transformative, community-led GME-SNC model that reimagines medical education as a force for public health improvement. By shifting physician training away from traditional hospital-centric systems and into community-based health centers, The Wright Center ensures care reaches people where they are, regardless of insurance status, ZIP code, or ability to pay. The Wright Center now trains nearly 450 interprofessional learners, physician residents, and fellows annually, many of whom remain to serve in the very communities where they received their training.
- Expanding a robust network of care to 13 community health centers across Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne, and Wyoming counties — plus a mobile medical and dental unit, Driving Better Health. Each site delivers high-quality, compassionate, comprehensive, whole-person primary health services, with an intentional focus on reaching rural and underserved populations.
- Leading the integration of comprehensive health services, including primary care, behavioral health, school-based care, dental services, and advanced health information technologies. This coordinated, patient-centered approach ensures individuals and families receive seamless, accessible care that addresses the full spectrum of health needs.
“Dr. Thomas-Hemak’s leadership has reshaped what is possible in community health,” said Deborah Kolsovsky, a longtime patient at The Wright Center and chair of The Wright Center for Community Health Board of Directors. “With unwavering vision, integrity, and purpose, she has built a nationally recognized model of care and education that puts people first — always. This Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Community Health Centers is more than well-deserved; it is a powerful acknowledgment of the deep, lasting impact she has made on patients, families, and the future of health care in Northeast Pennsylvania and far beyond.”
Under Dr. Thomas’ leadership, The Wright Center has garnered numerous accolades, including designation as a HRSA Federally Qualified Health Center Look-Alike; a Pennsylvania Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence and Coordination Center for Medication-Assisted Treatment; a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Top 30 Site for National Primary Care Innovations; recognition as both a University of California, San Francisco, Center of Excellence in Primary Care and an American Association of Medical Colleges’ Premier Primary Care Residency; membership in the prestigious 2024 American Medical Association ChangeMedEd Consortium; and leading partner in the Healthy Maternal Opiate Medical Support (Healthy MOMS) program for pregnant women and new mothers with substance use disorder. Following the Patient-Centered Medical Home Model, The Wright Center for Community Health’s Clarks Summit, Mid Valley, Scranton, and Wilkes-Barre locations achieved National Committee for Quality Assurance Patient-Centered Medical Home certification.
Dr. Thomas-Hemak also leads The Wright Center’s engagement in the Keystone Health Information Exchange and its catalytic role in a public television-based education campaign aimed at accelerating the wide-scale adoption of local, regional, and national health information interoperability.
A founding member of the consortium that established the Scranton-based Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, Dr. Thomas-Hemak is the governor for the Eastern Region of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American College of Physicians (PA-ACP), the nation’s largest medical-specialty organization.
She serves on numerous local, regional, and national health care and medical education nonprofit governing boards, cross-sector committees, and workgroups, including HRSA’s Council on Graduate Medical Education, a federal advisory committee that assesses and recommends actions on physician workforce trends, training issues, and financing policies. She serves as the chair of the Northeast Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center and is vice president, as well as a founding board member of the American Association of Teaching Health Centers, which represents community-based Teaching Health Centers that train primary care physicians.
Dr. Thomas-Hemak has received several prestigious state and national awards for her leadership, mentorship, and advocacy initiatives, including the 2020 Ann Preston Women in Medicine Award from PA-ACP, which recognizes her advancement of women’s leadership in medicine. In 2022, she earned the Elizabeth K. Cooke Advocacy MVP Award from NACHC for her efforts in engaging Congress and expanding grassroots advocacy. In 2024, she was honored with the Hometown Scholars Advocacy Award from the NACHC and A.T. Still University, as well as the Wilford Payne Health Center Mentor Award from the Pennsylvania Association of Community Health Centers.
Most recently, in February 2025, Dr. Thomas-Hemak received the prestigious Athena Leadership Award from the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce. Multimedia news organization City & State Pennsylvania also recognized her leadership and impact, naming her in December 2024 as one of the commonwealth’s 100 most powerful and influential women and in July 2024 as a 2024 Trailblazer in Healthcare for her groundbreaking work in public health and medical education.
She and her husband, Mark, have three children, Mason, Maya, and Antoinette. Dr. Thomas-Hemak is the daughter of the late William Thomas and Johanna Cavalieri Thomas, who lives in Archbald.
