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Dr. Mimi Benjamin has been a family practice physician for over 35 years, the last 14 in Juneau. She is the former Medical Director and creator of the Bartlett Regional Hospital Hospitalist program, which started in 2017. She is the 2018 recipient of the Golden Stethoscope award from the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association (ASHNHA) for her relentless advocacy for patient safety, for serving as the physician champion of the electronic medical record, and for cofounding and serving as medical director of Bartlett’s antibiotic stewardship program. 

This interview was recorded in May of 2024 During legislative session, I rented an apartment from Mimi and her husband Brian who is also a physician. Somehow in my move back to Anchorage I thought I’d lost this audio, but I eventually found it. Dr. Benjamin offers an interesting perspective from her experience in Southeast Alaska on both the specific issues in Juneau but also on health care in general.

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After 29 years at the Alaska Literacy Program, Lori Pickett recently retired and handed off the executive director responsibility to Deepika Ramesh Perumal. Both women are interviewed on the show today where we discuss their lives and what brought them to ALP.

The Anchorage Literacy Program started 50 years ago in 1974 as an all-volunteer organization to teach people to read. Over the years it has metamorphosized into predominantly an English language school that enables immigrants with limited or no English language capabilities to navigate and thrive in Anchorage. In addition to its volunteer-led English Language Classes, ALP also offers other clases, like GED prep courses,  and staffs a Peer Leader Navigator which helps folks achieve digital literacy. All ALP classes are free of charge and the bulk of their work is provided by volunteers. To be a part of the Anchorage Literacy Program visit their website by clicking here.

Lori Pickett is also the outgoing vice president of the Russian Jack Community Council. Big thanks to Lori for her service to RJCC. Find your community council by clicking here.

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Megan Edge is the Prison Project Director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska. At age 19, Megan got her first job in a newsroom, and she worked as a journalist for seven years covering local Anchorage issues, state politics, military affairs, the Iditarod, and most relevant to today’s conversation, crime and courts. In 2017, she left the news business to work in Governor Bill Walker’s administration as the Department of Corrections Public Information Officer. Her eyes were opened to many of the problems in Alaska’s prison system, and this led her to create the Prison Project at the ACLU of Alaska.

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Writer and former Anchorage Assembly member Charles Wohlforth is the author of more than ten books and numerous articles about science and the environment, politics and history, medicine, travel, and as-told-to biography including his 2012, To Russia with Love, with Vic Fischer. His book, The Whale and the Supercomputer, won the L.A. Times Book Prize in 2004. His three-times-weekly column for the Anchorage Daily News in 2019 won the western U.S. states’ most prestigious journalism award, “Best of the West.” Today, we are talking about his series of articles from the ADN published in 2016 and 2017 about problems with Alaska’s health care system. We are also discussing his 2022 book that he co-wrote with Dr. David Nash, How Covid Crashed the System: A guide to fixing American Health Care.

For link to Charles' ADN op-ed about zoning, click here.

For link to Celeste Hodge Growden's response to Charles' Zoning op-ed, click here.

For a list of Charles' ADN articles on Alaska Health Care, click here.

For a list of Charles' books, click here. 

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Former Alaska State House Representative Kyle Johansen was first elected to represent his hometown of Ketchikan in 2006. Two years later he became the Majority Leader in the Republican-led House. After being re-elected as Majority Leader in 2010 he left the caucus in protest of a committee leadership decision which he now sees as a huge mistake – a mistake he continues to pay for years afterward, ultimately driving him in  2019 to relocate to Hawaii. In the 34th Legislature which starts this January, he will be returning to Alaska to staff my office in Juneau. Today we learn his story.   

• Link to former Alaska State House Majority Leader Charisse Millett's episode here.
• Link to former Alaska State Senator Lesil McGuire's episode here.
• Link to former Alaska State House Rep Cliff Groh's episode here.

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Michelle Macuar Sparck is the director of strategic initiatives of the organization Get out the Native Vote. Get out the Native Vote is a non-partisan effort in Alaska to mobilize Alaska Native and American Indian Voters. Michelle Sparck is a member of the Qissunamiut Tribe of Chevak but grew up in Bethel. After graduating from Bethel High School, she moved to DC to attend American University. While there she worked for Senator Ted Stevens and later Congressman Don Young. After her work in DC she returned to Alaska to work with Tribes and subsistence activities with the Association of Village Council Presidents. She has been the Director of Strategic Initiatives at Get out the native vote since 2022.

Visit Get out the Native Vote, here.

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Michelle Turner is an environmental scientist who serves as the president of the Anchorage Democrats. Her day job is as a Principal Scientist with over 25 years of professional experience providing analysis and strategic advice under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for a local environmental consultancy firm. Her work includes data gap analyses, Environmental Impact Assessments, and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) working on behalf of both project sponsors and federal regulators.

Michelle's husband Carl Johnson is an environmental lawyer who ran for the state Senate in South Anchorage in 2020. His lifelong passion for photography first manifested in the Navy. He has served as the artist-in-residence for Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve, Badlands National Park, and Rocky Mountain National Park. In 2010, he was named the “Environmental Issues” category winner for the Windland Smith Rice International Awards sponsored by Nature’s Best Photography. His winning piece, “Wolf Tracks on Ice,” highlights the challenges of aggressive wolf predator control programs and was on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

Together Carl & Michelle own and manage two businesses: Alaska Photo Treks and Great Land Graphics. 

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Tom Pittman is the new Executive Director of Identity Inc. which was established in 1977 as the Alaskan Gay Community Center. Over the years, Identity has had different roles and purposes within the Alaska LGBTQIA2S+ community but has always sought to provide a safe haven for the queer community. In 2021, Identity merged with Full Spectrum Health and became Identity Health Clinic.

Tom Pittman has a master’s in health administration from the University of Washington, and has supported his tribe, the Tlingits, by working for the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC). He worked as an administrator for Fairbanks Memorial Hospital throughout the covid pandemic and its aftermath. He began his tenure as executive director of Identity in January 2024.

Visit Identity's website here.

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Maija Katak Lukin served as Mayor of Kotzebue in 2015 when President Barack Obama visited. She later became superintendent of the National Park Service’s Western Arctic National Parklands. She is now the Native Relations Program Manager for the National Park’s Service’s Region 11 which encompasses Alaska.  We discuss her early life, her commitment to the Inupiaq language, climate change's tangible impacts on the Arctic and more.

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Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal is the author of the 2017 book, An American Sickness: how healthcare became big business and how you can take it back. The Washington Post describes the book as: “An authoritative account of the distorted financial incentives that drive medical care in the United States . . . Every lawmaker and administration official should pick up a copy of [it].”

Dr. Rosenthal was for 22 years a reporter, correspondent, and senior writer for The New York Times before becoming the editor in chief of Kaiser Health News, an independent journalism newsroom focusing on health and health policy. She holds an MD from Harvard Medical School, trained in internal medicine, and has worked as an ER physician. For over a decade she has been responsible for a popular segment on National Public Radio called, “the Medical Bill of the Month.”

Click here for, "Where the frauds are legal: welcome to the weird world of medical billing," by Elisabeth Rosenthal from The New York Times, Dec. 7, 2019.