Inclusion Health Track Faculty

Dr. Patrick Perri received his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and M.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh with a special Concentration in Health Care to Underserved Populations, followed by residency training in Internal Medicine-Primary Care at Massachusetts General Hospital. After completing his residency, Dr. Perri served as Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Assistant in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital while working as a clinician on the Street Team of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. He currently serves as Medical Director of the CIH at Allegheny Health Network and is active as a primary care clinician educator on the faculty of the AHN Internal Medicine Residency Program. Within the CIH, he has leadership roles with the Program for Homeless and Urban Poverty Medicine, Inclusion Health Inpatient Consult Service, Medical Respite Program, and Inclusion Health Residency Training Track. In addition to his clinical and teaching activities, Dr. Perri directs the Street Medicine Institute—an international non-profit organization dedicated to improving access to health care services for people living on the streets throughout the world—and also chairs the annual International Street Medicine Symposium. During his twenty-plus years of work with homeless and other socially excluded populations, Dr. Perri has developed and implemented a number of internationally-recognized innovations in homeless health care delivery and medical education, including a homeless inpatient consultation service model and a comprehensive curriculum in homeless health care.

Dr. Venkat is an internist. Originally from Las Vegas, Nevada, she completed her undergraduate and medical school degrees at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. She has been inducted into the Golden Humanism Honor Society. She went on to complete her internal medicine training at the Allegheny General Hospital followed by her chief residency. Her current focus is in developing programs for incarcerated populations, substance use disorders, and social determinants of health. Her areas of interest include incarceration, substance use disorders, food insecurity, medical education and quality improvement. She believes in empowering physicians and patients through education and increasing access to vital resources.

Dr. Caitlin Couper is a board certified internist. Originally from Columbus, Ohio she
completed her Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan. After a year
of service teaching secondary school through WorldTeach in Tanzania, East
Africa, she attended medical school at the University of Toledo College of Medicine. While in Toledo, Dr. Couper helped organize, fundraise, and
participate in medical mission trips to Honduras and Guatemala. She then
completed her Internal Medicine residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where she focused on global health and care for underserved populations. During residency she spent time working at a government hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi and working in Navajo nation with Indian Health Services. Dr. Couper now works in the Center for Recovery Medicine with the inpatient consult teams at Allegheny General Hospital and West Penn Hospital. Her areas of interest include addressing substance use disorders in the inpatient setting, harm reduction, and increasing access to low-barrier healthcare.

Dr. Cuevas received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Notre Dame and her M.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh with a special Concentration in Health Care to Underserved Populations. She completed her residency training in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was also enrolled in the Primary Care Track. After residency, she took a dual appointment in the outpatient primary care academic practice, Internal Medicine Associates, with the Massachusetts General Hospital and in various clinics serving the homeless with the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP). Dr. Cuevas moved to Pittsburgh in 2011, joining the staff at Allegheny General Hospital. Her clinical time is devoted to the education of Internal Medicine Residents at AGH, working as a preceptor in the outpatient resident clinic as well as an attending on the inpatient teaching teams. She also serves as Core Faculty for the Internal Medicine Residency Program. Dr. Cuevas is one of the founding members of the CIH at AHN. Current projects with CIH include: integration of behavioral health into the primary care setting, PCMH, and implementation of screening for the social determinants of health. She currently serves as the Director of the CIH Track in the Internal Medicine Residency Program and Director of Primary Care Transformation for the residency clinics.

Dr. Fisher is a board certified internist with a fellowship certification in women’s health. After completing medical school at the University of Colorado, she moved home to Pittsburgh for her residency training and a chief resident year at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She then participated in a general internal medicine and women’s health fellowship through the VA. As part of her fellowship, she earned a masters in medical education from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Fisher is now a core faculty member and the Director of Women’s Health of the Medicine Institute. Dr. Fisher sees outpatients at the AGH Internal Medicine Clinic in the Women’s Health and Gender Medicine Primary Care Clinic, precepts students in the AGHIM outpatient clinic, and serves as a teaching attending at Allegheny General Hospital.

Dr. Heather Richards received her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and her M.D. degree from Wake Forest School of Medicine. She then went on to complete her Internal Medicine residency training in the Allegheny Health Network. Dr. Richards was the first physician hired in the CIH, quickly taking on the primary care for HIV patients in AHN’s Positive Health Clinic. She then went on to establish clinics for patients to receive PREP treatment and suboxone treatment for opioid use disorders. The protocols she developed are now being implemented across AHN. Her clinical interests include: LGBT, HIV positive, those with history of substance use, imprisoned patients. Dr. Richards’ leadership roles include serving as the Medical Director for the Inclusion Health Consult Service.

Dr. Miller is a board certified internist and pediatrician. He works primarily in the Homeless Medicine and Urban Poverty arm of the CIH with a sub-focus in addiction medicine. He originally hails from Reading, Pennsylvania, of fame for its monopoly board presence (the Reading Railroad) and pretzels. Jimmy completed undergrad at the University of Notre Dame where he majored in Physics and was an avid tuba player in the marching band. He attended medical school at The Ohio State University where he was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor society. While in Columbus, Ohio, he also helped establish a Free Clinic Alliance, a group that coordinated care for uninsured patients in free clinics across the city. He completed residency training in internal medicine and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, during which time he worked extensively with people at the intersection of urban poverty, mental health disorders, addictions and homelessness. He has continued and built on this work with the CIH through Allegheny Health Network, providing primary care for a number of different patient groups including people struggling with addictions and those experiencing homelessness. He regularly precepts residents in primary care clinic and attends on the inpatient service, in addition to staffing shelter clinics, engaging in medical street outreach for the homeless, and prescribing MAT for persons with opiate addictions. In addition to his direct clinical care, he is working on projects to expand treatment for opiate addiction to those who are street homeless and integrating patient care across multiple healthcare domains. He is passionate about creating models of care that are sensitive to patients’ cultural and environmental context and flexible to support them through multiple phases of care. He is a regular presence on the streets of Pittsburgh and in shelters across the city and believes that integrated healthcare is key to improving both individual and population health for patients of all demographics.

Dr. Robertson is a board certified internist. A native of Chambersburg Pennsylvania, Dr. Robertson completed his undergraduate degree in Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. After doing a year-long service program in Costa Rica, Dr. Robertson attended medical school at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and subsequently completed Internal Medicine residency at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where he focused on global health, care for underserved populations, and ultrasound education. Dr. Robertson joined AHN as an Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program, Director of Ultrasound Education, and is a co-founder of the innovation R.I.v.E.R. Post-Incarceration Clinic at CIH. He is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha and Gold Humanism Honor Societies. Dr. Robertson’s clinical and academic interests include providing primary care and access expansion for underserved populations, particularly those recently incarcerated, and directing the global health and Indian Health Serice electives. Additionally, he focuses on point-of-care ultrasound education and expansion of its clinical use in novel arenas, and is a POCUS educator for multiple national and international organizations. Dr. Robertson volunteers his time as a telemedicine consultant for rural medical clinics in Africa and is a regular contributor to the medical education podcast “Primary Care Reviews and Perspectives.”