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Wright Center President/CEO Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak Named Recipient of Prestigious Women in Medicine Award


Scranton, Pa. (Nov. 30, 2020) – Linda Thomas-Hemak, M.D., has been named recipient of the Dr. Ann Preston Women in Medicine Award by the Pennsylvania Eastern Region Chapter of the American College of Physicians (ACP). Recognized globally as the world’s largest medical-specialty society, the ACP bestowed the honor upon Dr. Thomas-Hemak as part of its efforts to “recognize excellence and distinguished contributions to internal medicine.”

Dr. Thomas-Hemak is the Chief Executive Officer of The Wright Center for Community Health and President of its affiliated entity, The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education. Born and raised in Northeast Pennsylvania and the daughter of Archbald’s William and Johanna Thomas, both retired public school teachers, Dr. Thomas-Hemak 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, Texas, and completing Harvard’s Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Residency in Boston, Massachusetts, she returned to NEPA to practice primary care.

She joined The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education and The Wright Center for Community Health, formerly The Wright Center Medical Group, in 2000, became President of the Medical Group in 2007, and the chief executive for both organizations in 2012. She is a board-certified, practicing, academic internal medicine/pediatrics/addiction medicine primary care provider at The Wright Center for Community Health’s Mid Valley Practice in Jermyn, the same borough where she currently resides with her husband and three children.

Started in 2019, the Women in Medicine Award recognizes an ACP chapter member whose outstanding efforts and achievements have promoted career success, leadership and overall quality of life for women in medicine, fostering tomorrow’s women leaders in medicine. The award is named after medical pioneer Dr. Ann Preston, a lifelong Philadelphia resident who was in the first class of women who enrolled in the Female (later Women’s) Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1850. After the Board of Censors of the Philadelphia Medical Society effectively banned women physicians from the public teaching clinics of the city, she raised funds to start a new hospital where teaching could occur, and opened The Women’s Hospital in 1858. She later created a school of nursing and was named the first woman dean of the Women’s Medical College in 1866.

“Your work as President and CEO of the Wright Center as well as the Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency program more than qualify you for this award. I am also personally aware of your tireless efforts to promote advocacy and let the voices of the underserved be heard, and appreciate your dedication to this cause,” noted Lawrence H. Jones, M.D., FACP, Governor of the ACP’s Pennsylvania Eastern Region Chapter, in his acknowledgment of Dr. Thomas-Hemak.

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