John Goodson

John Goodson, MD, is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Early in his career, Dr. Goodson engineered the transition to an integrated staff/resident practice model that ended the separation of resident and staff clinical activities, a model that later became the norm in all MGH practice sites. Dr. Goodson has developed two continuing medical education courses for his peers, "Primary Care Internal Medicine: Principles & Practice" (over 30 years) and "General Internal Medicine for Sub-specialists" (over 15 years). He has taught in the outpatient practices and on the wards of the MGH his entire career.

In 2000, Dr. Goodson directed a Massachusetts ballot to achieve state-based universal access through ballot initiative that barely lost in the November election. Dr. Goodson was then selected as the physician member of a state commission to determine the feasibility of state-based universal health care. Based on this commission’s work, he collaborated with a lawyer-activist to develop an innovative strategy to force legislative action on health care access with a constitutional amendment requiring the legislature and elected officials to ensure access to affordable health care based on John Adams’ language in the original Massachusetts constitution. The campaign collected 100,000 signatures, presented at numerous public venues and networked extensively with community organizations. Though the amendment was ultimately sequestered by the Senate President, the advocacy effort contributed to the Commonwealth’s commitment to expanded health care access in 2006, a model for the 2010 ACA.

In 2000, Dr. Goodson led the creation of the John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation, a primary care “think tank” within the MGH Division of General Medicine. The Center has become a national leader in primary care practice innovation, making substantial contributions to all the Partners primary care practices in areas of patient experience, quality assessment, and decision support. He is currently the chair the Stoeckle Center Board.

On a national level, Dr Goodson has advocated to improve compensation for generalist physicians so as to ensure a highly talented primary care workforce for the nation’s future. His published papers describe innovations in residency training and practice support. His editorials comment on those aspects of physician payment that have adversely affected the primary care workforce.

Dr. Goodson remains active in practice, with an active patient panel of over 1,200 patients. He cares for roughly 70 patients in his office each week, and manages 2-5 inpatients on a daily basis. He was an American social history major at Columbia University, attended Stanford Medical School, and completed his internal medicine training in primary care at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).