The Politics of the Pandemic: Dr. Kavita Patel and Dr. Janice Blanchard with James Hohmann

Kavita Patel is a Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Previously, she was the managing director of clinical transformation at the Center for Health Policy at Brookings.

Dr. Patel is a primary care physician in Washington, DC. She also served in the Obama Administration as director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement in the White House. As a senior aide to Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s senior advisor, Dr. Patel played a critical role in policy development and evaluation of policy initiatives connected to health reform, financial regulatory reform, and economic recovery issues.

Dr. Patel also has a deep understanding of Capitol Hill from her time spent on the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s staff. As deputy staff director on health, she served as a policy analyst and trusted aide to the Senator and was part of the senior staff of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee under Sen. Kennedy’s leadership. She also has an extensive research and clinical background, having worked as a researcher at the RAND Corporation and as a practicing physician in both California and Oregon. She currently advises health care technology and services organizations through New Enterprise Associates.

Dr. Patel a previous Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, and while at Brookings, returned to providing clinical care as an internal medicine practitioner. She earned her medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center and her masters in public health from the University of California Los Angeles.

James Hohmann is a national political correspondent for The Washington Post. He is the author of The Daily 202, The Post’s flagship political newsletter, and the voice of its affiliated Big Idea audio briefing. Hohmann covered local news for The Post in the aughts and returned in 2015 after six years at Politico. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, and San Jose Mercury News. A historian by training, Hohmann grew up in Apple Valley, Minn., and graduated with honors from Stanford University.

Janice Blanchard MD PhD is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine. Originally from the South side of Chicago, where her family still resides, she completed her MD from Harvard Medical School and her PhD in health services research from the RAND Graduate School. She is a mixed methods health services researcher and has worked on a number of projects related to racial disparities in medicine. In addition to her research work, she continues to practice clinical medicine in the emergency department in Washington DC, where over 75% of deaths from COVID-19 have occurred among Blacks.