Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO of The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, was named one of the 100 most powerful and influential female leaders in Pennsylvania by City & State Pennsylvania. The multimedia organization debuted its third annual Power of Diversity: Women 100 list on Dec. 23.

The list highlights the achievements of women in diverse fields – including government, nonprofits, education, business, labor, and advocacy – who are shaping Pennsylvania’s future with their visionary leadership and significant contributions. Honorees included Kim Ward, president pro tempore, Senate of Pennsylvania; Joanna McClinton, speaker, Pennsylvania House of Representatives; Cherelle Parker, mayor of Philadelphia; Debra Todd, chief justice, Pennsylvania Supreme Court; and Leslie C. Davis, president and CEO, UPMC.

This is the second time this year that City & State Pennsylvania has recognized Dr. Thomas-Hemak for her exceptional leadership and achievements. In July, the organization selected her as a 2024 Trailblazer in Health Care.

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 her hometown of Jermyn. 

“Dr. Thomas-Hemak’s well-deserved recognition as one of Pennsylvania’s 100 most powerful and influential female leaders reaffirms what we at The Wright Center already know: she is a brilliant, visionary, and inspirational leader, as well as a compassionate, dedicated, and exceptionally skilled physician,” said The Wright Center for Community Health Board of Directors Chair Deborah Kolsovsky. “She has an infectious passion for helping others and a remarkable ability to inspire a shared vision. She has devoted her entire career to advancing health equity, especially among our region’s most vulnerable populations, improving access to high-quality, nondiscriminatory, whole-person primary health services, and training and mentoring the next generation of health care professionals.”

Dr. Thomas-Hemak graduated from 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, joining The Wright Center in 2001, becoming president in 2007, and CEO in 2012.

Under her stewardship, The Wright Center has expanded its growing network of community health centers in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne, and Wyoming counties, including a mobile medical and dental unit called Driving Better Health.

She also guided The Wright Center to achieve numerous prestigious distinctions, including its designation as a Federally Qualified Health Center Look-Alike in 2019, which unlocked essential federal resources for the region and significantly expanded health care access. The Wright Center has also been recognized as a Top 30 Site for National Primary Care Innovations by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and, in 2024, was inducted into the esteemed American Medical Association’s ChangeMedEd Consortium.

Dr. Thomas-Hemak also led The Wright Center for Community Health’s transformation into one of the first state-designated Opioid Use Disorder Centers of Excellence in 2016, improving access to substance use disorder treatment. Amid rising obesity rates, she guided physicians in obtaining board certification in obesity medicine to better address critical health needs.

She also transformed The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education into one of the nation’s largest Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortiums (GME-SNC). Through inclusive, interprofessional workforce development and targeted initiatives, the GME-SNC model seeks to improve public health by addressing the national primary care physician shortage, misdistribution and related health and health care career access disparities.

Dr. Thomas-Hemak also serves as the governor for the Eastern Region of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American College of Physicians, the nation’s largest medical-specialty organization. She sits on numerous local, regional, and national health care and medical education nonprofit governing boards, cross-sector committees, and workgroups, including the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration’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 is chair of the Northeast Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center Governing Board and a governing board member of the Keystone Accountable Care Organization, The Institute, and the Center for Health and Human Services Research and Action. She is also a founding member of the consortium that established the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine and a founding board member of the American Association of Teaching Health Centers.

Dr. Thomas-Hemak has received several prestigious state and national awards for her leadership, mentorship, and advocacy initiatives, including the 2024 Hometown Scholars Advocacy Award from the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) and A.T. Still University for her exemplary leadership in mentoring and inspiring others; the 2024 Wilford Payne Health Center Mentor Award from the Pennsylvania Association of Community Health Centers; NACHC’s 2022 Elizabeth K. Cooke Advocacy MVP Award for her efforts in engaging Congress and expanding grassroots advocacy; and the 2020 Ann Preston Women in Medicine Award from the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American College of Physicians for advancing women’s leadership in medicine.

She and her husband, Mark, reside in Jermyn and 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.