Peter Ellis, MD, MPH

I am a practicing General Internist with additional training in Public Health (MPH, 1995, Johns Hopkins) and Medical Education (General Internal Medicine Fellowship, Johns Hopkins 1992-1995). I haven been working as a Yale Faculty member since 1995. I provide comprehensive medical care to my own panel of 1000 patients at Yale Internal Medicine Associates including preventive care, and I co-direct a required clinical clerkship for all Yale Medical Students, the Biopsychosocial Approach to Health - Primary Care Psychiatry Clerkship. Additionally, I serve on the Board of a local non-profit organization to improve access to medical care to New Haven area residents lacking health insurance, Project Access- New Haven (pa-nh.org).

Following is a more detailed biographical sketch:
I was born in 1961 in Milton, MA, graduated from Princeton University in 1983, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 1987, and earned a Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1995. I joined the Yale Faculty in 1995 as Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine with an interest in teaching medical education and in caring for underserved individuals.
Together with my Yale colleagues , we launched a successful outreach project providing medical care to homeless persons at the St Vincent DePaul Homeless Shelter in Waterbury CT. I worked as Interim Director of Public Health, City of Waterbury CT during 2002 which propelled me to thinking about community health. I discovered Project Access, a coordinated system of charity medical care started in Asheville, NC to improve access and quality of care for uninsured, low income patients. In 2004 we obtained a Federal HRSA grant and successfully launched Project Access in Waterbury. As Medical Director, I helped recruit over 300 physicians who agreed to provide voluntary care. The project donated over $3,000,000 in medical care.

In 2006 I joined Yale Internal Medicine Associates where I provide primary care to a panel of approximately 1000 patients. In 2010, working together with medical specialist colleagues, we launched Project Access New Haven (pa-nh.org) to improve access to specialty medical care for low-income, uninsured persons living in New Haven. We have donated over $50 million worth of care to patients to date.

In June 2016 I became co- Director of the Biopsychosocial Approach to Health - Primary Care Psychiatry Clerkship. The Clerkship are to equip Yale students with clinical skills needed to provide excellent Primary Care e.g., interviewing, physical examination, clinical reasoning. Students learn from dedicated, experience office-based preceptors while providing hands-on care managing patient's acute, chronic and preventive care needs. Students not learn not only about important medical and psychiatric conditions, but how to manage conditions that overlap specialties such as substance abuse, smoking cessation, somatic symptom disorder, delirium, and how to address social determinants of health. We want students to thinking holistically about health using a biopsychsocial approach.

I am proudest of these three awards:
1. Volunteerism and Community Service Award, Connecticut Chapter of the American College of Physicians, 2003.
2. George Thornton Community Teacher of the Year, Yale Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program 2005.
3. Distinguished Service Award, New Haven County Medical Association, 2009.

I live in New Haven together with my wife Merceditas Villanueva, MD, Director of the Yale HIV Program. We have two children, Maliya age 19 and Oceane, age 17, who inspire and humble us!