Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO of the Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, received the prestigious 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Community Health Centers in recognition of a 25-year career as a transformative community health center leader, primary care physician, medical educator and public health advocate.
Thomas-Hemak, a Jermyn native and resident, accepted the award during NACHC’s annual Community Health Institute — Community Health Conference & Expo, held Aug. 17-19 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago in Illinois. Lifetime Achievement Award winners are honored for their commitment, dedication and contributions to the Community Health Center Movement and expansion of access to high-quality, compassionate care for all.
“I am deeply honored and humbled to receive this Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Community Health Centers, an organization whose mission and values have so closely aligned with my own throughout my career,” Thomas-Hemak said in a news release. “This recognition affirms my personal and professional journey as a first-generation, small-town primary care physician, public health advocate, medical educator, and teaching health center enthusiast, forever energized by the enduring, collective power and spirit of the community health center movement.”
A graduate of Scranton Preparatory School and the University of Scranton, Thomas-Hemak earned her medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and completed Harvard’s Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Residency Program in Boston. She returned to Northeast Pennsylvania to practice primary care. Thomas-Hemak joined the Wright Center in 2001, becoming president in 2007 and CEO in 2012.
Alongside her executive responsibilities, Thomas-Hemak is also quintuple board-certified in internal medicine, pediatrics, obesity medicine, addiction medicine and nutrition. She sees patients at the Wright Center for Community Health Mid Valley in Jermyn.
Championing a people-over-profit philosophy, Thomas-Hemak has propelled the Wright Center to national prominence through visionary leadership and mission-driven innovation. This includes establishing one of the nation’s largest Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortiums. In addition, she has overseen the expansion of a network of care to 13 community health centers across Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne and Wyoming counties, plus a mobile medical and dental unit, and led the integration of comprehensive health services with the goal of ensuring individuals and families receive accessible care.
Under Thomas-Hemak’s leadership, the Wright Center has garnered numerous accolades, including designation as a HRSA Federally Qualified Health Center Look-Alike and a Pennsylvania Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence and Coordination Center for Medication-Assisted Treatment. Following the Patient-Centered Medical Home Model, the Wright Center for Community Health’s Clarks Summit, Mid Valley, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre locations achieved National Committee for Quality Assurance Patient-Centered Medical Home certification.
Thomas-Hemak is the governor for the Eastern Region of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American College of Physicians, the nation’s largest medical-specialty organization. She serves on several local, regional and national health care and medical education nonprofit governing boards, cross-sector committees and workgroups. She is also the chair of the Northeast Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center and is vice president and a founding board member of the American Association of Teaching Health Centers.
She has received several state and national awards for her leadership, mentorship and advocacy initiatives. Most recently in February, she received the Athena Leadership Award from the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce. In 2024, City & State Pennsylvania named her a Trailblazer in Health Care and one of Pennsylvania’s 100 most powerful and influential female leaders.
Thomas-Hemak and her husband, Mark, have three children, Mason, Maya and Antoinette. She is the daughter of the late William Thomas and Johanna Cavalieri Thomas, who lives in Archbald.