Advisory Boards

Medical Advisory Board Members

Victor Diaz, MD, MPH, MPA

Victor A. Diaz formed his own healthcare consulting company providing services to health care delivery systems, managed care organizations and pharmaceutical companies. In addition, he is also a practicing clinician.

Dr. Diaz has been a health care executive since 1989, having worked both as a physician executive in the direct delivery health care system, as well as in the corporate managed care environment. His past employment includes medical director positions at various levels of responsibility at CIGNA, AETNA and WellPoint, where he served as a Vice President Medical Director. In his most recent position he served as Chief Medical Officer for Humana Military Healthcare Systems which services the governments TRICARE product. Among Dr. Diaz's interests is the application of continuing medical education to clinical practice.

Dr. Diaz holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a Doctor of Medicine from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Leon School of Medicine, Monterrey, Mexico. He completed a residency in Family Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. Subsequently, he was awarded a National Institute of Health Fellowship in Clinical Epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. During this time he earned a Masters Degree in Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. His formal education includes a Masters Degree in Public Administration/Health Services Administration from the University of San Francisco.

Dr. Diaz is a Diplomate of the American Board of Family Practice and the American Board of Medical Management. Since 1996, he has been a Surveyor for the National Commission on Quality Assurance (NCQA) and a speaker on a number of issues related to managed care.

Michael J. Bloch, MD

Michael J. Bloch, MD is Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Nevada School of Medicine and the designer and Medical Director of the innovative Risk Reduction Center at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center, both located in Reno, Nevada.

Dr. Bloch’s undergraduate degree is from Princeton University, and he learned his medical degree from Georgetown University Medical School in Washington, DC. He subsequently completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, where he also completed a Fellowship in hypertension and vascular medicine.

Board-certified in internal medicine, Dr. Bloch has been designated a Clinical Hypertension Specialist by the American Society of Hypertension and a Clinical Lipid Specialist by the American Board of Clinical Lipidology. He is also Fellow in the Society of Vascular Medicine and Biology.

As principal investigator on several clinical trials, Dr. Bloch’s research has focused on the diagnosis and management of renovascular disease and exploring novel means of overcoming barriers to hypertension, dyslipidemia and glycemic control. He is also a sub-investigator for the landmark Women’s Health Initiative. Dr. Bloch currently writes a monthly column for the Journal of Clinical Hypertension, and his work has been published in multiple journals and textbooks.

George Mejicano, MD, MS

George C. Mejicano received his medical degree from the University of Illinois in 1990. After finishing his post-graduate clinical training at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, he became board certified in both internal medicine and infectious diseases. He is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. His clinical interests include travel medicine, antibiotic resistance, and emerging infectious diseases. In 2000, he was the recipient of the Distinguished Internist Award from the Wisconsin Chapter of the American College of Physicians. From 2003-2004, he served on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Center for Infectious Diseases of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In 1996, Dr. Mejicano received a Master of Science degree in adult and continuing education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His educational interests include needs assessment and educational outcomes and he has done research on physician assessment and how education can lead to improvements in medical practice. In 2002, he was awarded the W.C. Felch / Wyeth- Ayerst Award for Research in Continuing Medical Education (CME) by the Alliance for CME.

Dr. Mejicano currently serves as the Associate Dean for Continuing Professional Development and is the Director of the Office of Continuing Professional Development in Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He has given numerous national and international presentations related to continuing education. At present, he serves on the Board of Directors for the Alliance for Continuing Medical Education and is the Chair of the Committee for Review and Recognition for the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).

Dr. Mejicano is the recipient of numerous teaching awards including the 1998 and 2003 Medical Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Awards, the 1999 Department of Medicine House Staff Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 2003 Medical School Dean’s Teaching Award, and the 2003 Alliant Energy - Underkofler Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Wisconsin System.

Nursing Advisory Board Members

Frances Medaglia PhD, MSN, APRN, BC

Frances M. Dwyer has over 25 years experience in health care. She is a licensed professional nurse and board certified as an adult nurse practitioner. She holds a master degree in gerontological nursing from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and a doctoral degree in health policy from Brandeis University.

Dr. Dwyer has worked most of her career in the public health arena delivering primary care services to adults. She is the clinical coordinator for the Massachusetts national Environmental Public Health Tracking Network Implementation project, an ongoing CDC cooperative agreement building a national chronic disease surveillance system. Dr. Dwyer holds a seat on the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Institutional Review Board and is an associate editor for the journal Clinical Excellence for Nurse Practitioners.

Dr. Medaglia is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Graduate Nursing Program at Northeastern University School of Nursing and is also on the faculty of Emmanuel College in Boston where she teaches nursing research. She is a member of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the Massachusetts Coalition of Nurse Practitioners and Sigma Theta Tau, the International Honor Society of Nurses.

Nancy Boccuzzi, RN, MA, MPH

Nancy Boccuzzi is an experienced nursing and healthcare administrator. She recently retired as senior vice president for clinical affairs at Executive Health Exams International, where she chaired the company's medical advisory board. Prior to that position, she served as associate dean at Columbia University School of Nursing and as a nursing director for a New York children's specialty hospital. Other past positions include homecare administration and faculty practice and managed care administration in both corporate and academic settings.

A graduate of St. Luke's Hospital School of Nursing in St. Louis, she holds a M.A. in Education from Fairleigh Dickinson University and an M.P.H. from Columbia University.

Cathy M. St. Pierre, PhD, ARNP

Dr. Cathy St. Pierre is a Family Nurse Practitioner with over 25 years of experience in practice and academia. She has been nationally certified as an FNP since 1981. She joined the faculty at Florida Atlantic University in 2003 and her prior academic appointments were as graduate nursing faculty at two colleges in New England. Dr St. Pierre coordinated the Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) Program at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and was instrumental in establishing the FNP Masters program at Rivier College in New Hampshire. Dr. St. Pierre has taught over 175 nurse practitioner students during her career. She has also precepted nurse practitioner students from several masters programs.

Dr. St. Pierre has also worked in a clinical position in a variety of health care settings. She has experienced a lot of "firsts" in her career. She was the first NP hired in Internal Medicine at a community health center in the Boston area. In this position she developed an medical outreach program for senior citizens which included health care visits in the home and in nursing homes. She was also the first NP hired to work in a pediatric practice at an HMO setting in Massachusetts. Three years later, she was the first NP to work in Internal medicine at Valley Medical Associates. She worked to establish the first urgent care department in this facility. She was honored by her colleagues at Valley Medical by being voted the "Clinical Associate of the Year" award in 1996. In addition to this, while still working at this HMO, Dr. St. Pierre became the "Medical Director" of a health care van serving the school aged population in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Her work in this endeavor earned her the Medical Director appreciation award by the Caring for Children Foundation in Massachusetts. For all of her work and efforts, Dr. St. Pierre was awarded the "New Hampshire Nurse Practitioner of the Year" award in 2001.

Dr. St. Pierre received her bachelor's degree in Nursing from Northeastern University, her Masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her PhD in Nursing from Boston College. She has taught over 125 nurse practitioner students Her research interest include: Post partum depression, complementary medicine and meeting the needs of the underserved.