Don McCanne received his B.A. at the University of California at Riverside in 1959 and his M.D. from the University of California at San Francisco in 1963. After serving two years as a medical officer in the U.S. Army, he practiced as a family physician for over thirty years in San Clemente, California. He was a Charter Diplomate of the American Board of Family Practice, and a Charter Fellow and Life Member of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He has served as chief of staff of his community hospital and as chairman of the board of a community bank. He has dedicated his remaining productive years to health care reform activism: speaking and writing extensively on universal health care and other policies for expanding health care coverage, access and affordability. He served as president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) for two terms, in 2002 and 2003, and is currently Senior Health Policy Fellow for PNHP.