Valerie Arkoosh

Dr. Valerie Arkoosh is the President of the National Physicians Alliance, a multispecialty physician organization founded to promote health and foster active engagement of physicians with their communities to achieve high quality, affordable health care for all. She is a member of the Board’s Executive Committee and chairs the organization’s Secure Health Care For All Campaign. Dr. Arkoosh holds the Master of Public Health degree, with a concentration in Health Policy, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her policy work focuses on ways to provide access to health care for uninsured Americans with a particular emphasis on the impact and implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Dr. Arkoosh received the Doctor of Medicine from the University of Nebraska College of Medicine and a B.A. in economics from Northwestern University. Dr. Arkoosh is Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology and Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Arkoosh’s medical practice has centered on the care of the high-risk obstetric patient during labor and delivery. Her research has focused on drugs and devices using the spinal route of administration to produce labor analgesia. Dr. Arkoosh is an examiner for the American Board of Anesthesiology and an elected member of the Association of University Anesthesiologists. She has won several resident teaching awards. Dr. Arkoosh has served as President of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP), an organization focused on the provision of optimal care to women during labor and delivery. Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania, she was Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at Drexel University College of Medicine. Dr. Arkoosh also has an avid interest in improving maternal and infant health in developing countries. She has participated in three medical missions to Kenya with Operation Smile and facilitated the development of SOAP’s International Outreach Program