Board of Directors

David B Clarke, DMin, JD, MPH, is founder (1988) and Executive Director of Massachusetts Health Decisions. His primary interests include helping people develop better working and decision making relationships with their clinicians, and helping clinicians improve their communication skills with patients. Since 1990, he has helped Massachusetts Health Decisions become the lead promoter of the Health Care Proxy in Massachusetts, distributing more than ten million copies of the form in 15 languages and conducting more than 250 education sessions for professional and public audiences.

Ruth L. Fischbach, PhD, MPE is Professor of Bioethics and Director and Co-founder and Director Emerita of the Center for Bioethics at Columbia University. Previously, she was Senior Advisor for Biomedical Ethics in the Office of the Director of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health and was a bioethicist/medical sociologist at Harvard Medical School and Washington University School of Medicine. Her current research interests and publications focus on neuroethics, stem cell research, and advances in assisted reproductive technology. She is the principal investigator on a study to assess concordance in attitudes and experiences with genetics and social stigma between parents of children on the autism spectrum and autism genetics scientists.

J. Peter Maselli, MD, (Vice President & Treasurer) is a Master Trainer and faculty member at the Institute of Healthcare Communication in New Haven, CT. The Institute works to improve the clinician patient relationship by developing award-winning education programs to enhance clinician communication skills. He is the former Medical Director of the Massachusetts Peer Review Organization (MassPRO), a subsidiary of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and a retired vascular surgeon at Faulkner Hospital, Boston.

Paul Montgomery, PhD, (Clerk) is Education Coordinator at the Center for Medical Simulation in Boston at the Charlestown Navy Yard. Formerly, he was Director of Community Relations of the Palliative Care Service at Massachusetts General Hospital; the hospice director at Emerson Hospital in Concord, and then at Cranberry Hospice in Plymouth; and on the Board of Directors of the statewide Hospice and Palliative Care Federation for more than 20 years. He is interested in group decision-making, in how to maximize the effectiveness of interdisciplinary team meetings, and in the training of advance care planning facilitators for healthcare organizations.

Judith Presser, MS, is a Senior Consultant at WFD Consulting in Waltham, Massachusetts, where she consults to private industry employers and others on issues of work-life management and dependent care. She has extensive experience in nonprofit organizational development, reviewing and administering state and charitable grants, and developing effective programs to address family needs.

Christine Swanson, RN, is a nurse at the Interventional Radiology Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Prior to her current position, she was a cardiac care nurse at the MGH for almost 25 years, and has been publicly recognized four times through the ‘Partners in Excellence Award’ for her innovative work in cardiac nursing, mentoring of new staff, teaching, and developing innovative programs and systems.