Leadership and Governance

D. John Doyle, M.D., PhD.

Former Consultant and Contributor, AJWRB

Dr. D. John Doyle was a distinguished anesthesiologist, engineer, and bioethicist who served as a deeply valued consultant to AJWRB for many years. He passed away in 2025 at the age of 66. During his time with our organization, Dr. Doyle authored several pivotal articles published by AJWRB addressing the clinical risks associated with blood transfusion refusal. AJWRB gratefully acknowledges his immense service, expertise, and contributions. He will be deeply missed.

Medical & Academic Leadership

Dr. Doyle spent over two decades as a Staff Anesthesiologist in the Department of General Anesthesiology at the Cleveland Clinic and as a Professor of Anesthesiology (Emeritus) at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. Prior to his 23-year tenure in Cleveland, he spent 15 years as a Staff Anesthesiologist at the University of Toronto and Toronto General Hospital. He received his Canadian board certification in anesthesia (FRCPC) in 1986 and his American certification in 1989.

Clinical Expertise & Industry Impact

A recognized leader in his field, Dr. Doyle had a long-standing interest in ENT anesthesia, difficult airway management, and the integration of technology in medicine. He spoke and published extensively on these topics, leaving behind a robust body of medical literature. His dedication to advancing the field led him to serve as the past president of both the Society for Airway Management and the Society for Technology in Anesthesia. He also shared his ongoing insights and professional perspectives on his personal blog, DanielJohnDoyle.com.

A Legacy of Lifelong Learning

Dr. Doyle’s extraordinary academic background spanned medicine, engineering, education, and bioethics, reflecting a boundless curiosity and dedication to learning:

• Medicine & Engineering: He earned his M.D. in 1982 and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 1986 from the University of Toronto. His foundational studies included a Gold Medal in Physics and Mathematics from St. Francis Xavier University (1972), followed by a Master of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia (1974), and a Master of Engineering in Systems Engineering and Computing Science from Carleton University (1979).

• Bioethics & Education: Later in his career, Dr. Doyle turned his academic focus toward the ethical and educational facets of healthcare. He earned a Master of Education from Memorial University of Newfoundland (2006) and a Master of Arts in Integrated Studies from Athabasca University (2007). Demonstrating his enduring commitment to medical ethics, he earned an Advanced Certificate in Bioethics from Cleveland State University (2004) and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies with a focus on Bioethics from Excelsior College (2009), maintaining a 4.0 GPA in both programs.

Reinhold Munker, MD

Member, Scientific Advisory Council, AJWRB

Dr. Munker is a highly accomplished hematologist and internal medicine physician who currently serves as a valued member of the Scientific Advisory Council for AJWRB. With extensive international training and decades of specialized clinical and research experience, his deep expertise in hematology is an invaluable asset to our organization.

Medical Education & Academic Appointments

Dr. Munker’s foundational medical training took place in Germany. He earned his medical degree from Friedrich-Alexander Universität (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) in Erlangen. Reflecting his academic distinction, he achieved his Dr.med. habil.—qualifying him for a faculty appointment—at the prestigious Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität in Munich.

Clinical Training & Fellowships

Dr. Munker completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Universitätsklinikum Grosshadern in Munich. He subsequently pursued rigorous, multi-institutional fellowship training to specialize in blood disorders and oncology:

• Hematology: Klinikum der Universität Essen, Germany

• Hematology/Oncology: Universitätsklinikum Grosshadern Munich, Germany

• Research Fellowship (Hematology): Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany

Global Research & Literature Contributions

Demonstrating a lifelong commitment to advancing hematological science, Dr. Munker has conducted extensive research and completed sabbaticals at world-renowned medical institutions. His research background includes work in Munich (GSF), Los Angeles (UCLA), Houston (MD Anderson Cancer Center), and Columbus (Ohio State University).

Dr. Munker is a prolific medical author and researcher, having published nearly 300 research items throughout his career. His extensive body of work has garnered thousands of citations across the global medical community. As a recognized authority in his field, he has authored and co-edited key medical textbooks, most notably multiple editions of Modern Hematology: Biology and Clinical Management. Furthermore, his peer-reviewed articles and clinical studies have been widely featured in top-tier medical journals, including Blood, Nature, and the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Certifications

Dr. Munker holds the following specialized medical certifications:

• American Board of Internal Medicine

• American Board of Internal Medicine, Hematology

Nickolas A. Davies, MD

Member, Scientific Advisory Council, AJWRB

Dr. Nickolas A. Davies is an anesthesiologist based in Durham, North Carolina, who serves as a valued member of the Scientific Advisory Council for AJWRB. Bringing a unique and extensive clinical background to the council, Dr. Davies offers a wealth of practical, leadership, and academic expertise in anesthesiology and patient care.

Medical Education & Training

Dr. Davies earned his Doctor of Medicine (MD) from the University of Florida College of Medicine. He is currently advancing his specialized clinical training as an Anesthesiology Resident within the prestigious Duke University Health System. Prior to obtaining his medical doctorate, he earned a Master of Science as an Anesthesiologist Assistant from Nova Southeastern University.

Clinical Experience & Leadership

Before completing his medical degree, Dr. Davies built a robust foundation in anesthetic care, serving as an Anesthesiologist Assistant with Envision Physician Services for over 13 years. A dedicated advocate for his profession, he has also held prominent state and national leadership roles. He is the past President of both the American Academy of Anesthesiologist Assistants (2018) and the Florida Academy of Anesthesiologist Assistants (2015–2016).

Research & Innovation

Beyond his clinical practice and advisory roles, Dr. Davies is actively involved in cutting-edge scientific research. He is currently focused on exploring novel drug and device discovery for synthetic torpor, investigating its groundbreaking potential and applications for both clinical medicine and spaceflight.

Neil Baum, MD

Member, Scientific Advisory Council, AJWRB

Dr. Neil Baum is a retired urologic surgeon with over forty years of clinical experience who brings a wealth of medical and practice management expertise to the Scientific Advisory Council for AJWRB. He is a Professor of Clinical Urology at Tulane Medical School in New Orleans, Louisiana, and currently serves as the medical advisor to Vanguard Communications Group, headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

Medical Education & Training

Dr. Baum completed his undergraduate pre-medical education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He subsequently earned his Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from the Ohio State University School of Medicine in Columbus.

Clinical Expertise & Industry Leadership

While Dr. Baum has decades of clinical surgical experience, his distinct areas of expertise extend deeply into practice management, ethical marketing for medical professionals, telemedicine, social media, and practice productivity. He is a highly requested speaker, presenting on these topics to numerous professional organizations, including the American Urological Association (AUA), the American Academy of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Medical Group Management Association, as well as various hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. Known for his engaging presentation style, Dr. Baum uniquely incorporates humor and magic effects into his programs to deliver highly practical, easily implementable ideas for improving healthcare practices.

Publications & Academic Contributions

Dr. Baum is a prolific author and recognized thought leader in the business of medicine. He has written 18 books, spanning topics from practice management to health and well-being for the general public. His notable works include The Complete Business Guide to a Successful Medical Practice, The Business Basics of Building and Managing a Healthcare Practice (co-authored with Dr. Marc Kahn), and Marketing Your Clinical Practice – Ethically, Effectively, and Economically, which is currently in its 4th edition, has sold over 200,000 copies, and has been translated into Spanish.

In addition to his books, Dr. Baum has authored over 250 peer-reviewed articles published in medical journals across the United States, Europe, and Latin America. For decades, he was a prominent voice in medical journalism, authoring the popular column “The Bottom Line” for American Medical News (for over 25 years) and Urology Times (for over 20 years). Today, he continues to share his insights by writing a weekly blog for SERMO.com and MedPage Today.

Faith N. McGinn, FNP, MSN, RN, IBCLC

Member, Scientific Advisory Council, AJWRB

Faith McGinn is a dedicated Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) who serves as a valued member of the Scientific Advisory Council for AJWRB. Bringing her own lived experience as a Jehovah’s Witness, she offers a deeply personal, culturally nuanced perspective to the council. With a healthcare career spanning over two decades, she approaches patient care with a profound understanding of the complex intersections between faith, bodily autonomy, and informed choice in medicine.

Medical Education & Training

Faith earned her Master of Science in Nursing with a focus on Family Practice from the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing in 2021. Prior to her graduate studies, she received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Clinical Experience & Patient Care

Faith’s career in healthcare began in 1996 as a birth doula, childbirth educator, and lactation educator. Her early experiences supporting new families inspired her to pursue advanced nursing, leading to extensive roles as a Labor and Delivery Nurse and RN Lactation Consultant at institutions such as UCHealth and Platte Valley Medical Center.

In 2021, she founded All is Well Family Practice, a nonprofit clinic where she serves as a general clinician. While she is equipped to treat patients across all ages and stages of life, her practice brings a special focus to emerging families (parents and infants), full-scope women’s care, mental health, medical weight management, and gender care. Faith views listening and investing time in her clients as her strongest diagnostic tools, striving to build true healthcare partnerships based on trust, integrity, and humanist ethics.

Advocacy, Education & Outreach

A lifelong learner and passionate educator, Faith is dedicated to sharing knowledge with both future medical professionals and the public. She currently serves as teaching faculty at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Recognizing the power of accessible healthcare education, she offers support classes for families planning for birth and successful breastfeeding. She extends this educational outreach globally through her popular YouTube channel, wagonbird, which has garnered over 6 million views and a community of more than 30,000 subscribers. Through her online courses and public platforms, Faith continues her overarching goal to empower communities and help individuals achieve the healthcare support they truly deserve.

Lee Elder

Executive Director | Chair, Executive Committee

Lee Elder is an independent researcher and the founder and Executive Director of the Alliance for Jehovah’s Witness Research and Bioethics (AJWRB). His work explores the intersection of religious ethics, institutional governance, and clinical bioethics, examining how institutional authority, evolving religious doctrine, and information asymmetries influence informed consent, patient autonomy, and medical decision-making. Using Jehovah’s Witnesses as a principal case study, his research investigates the ethical implications of organizational influence on healthcare decisions and the responsibilities of clinicians caring for patients whose treatment choices are shaped by institutional belief systems.

A third-generation Jehovah’s Witness, Elder served for many years in a variety of leadership roles within the denomination, including regular pioneer, ministerial servant, congregation elder, congregation secretary, and Watchtower Study conductor. His interest in the ethical dimensions of the faith’s blood refusal doctrine emerged in the early 1990s through discussions with his primary care physician and his observations of the profound challenges faced by fellow Witnesses confronting life-and-death medical decisions under institutional constraints.

In 1997, while still serving as a congregation elder, Elder founded the New Light on Blood initiative under the pseudonym “Lee Elder.” The project enabled him to critically examine Watchtower medical policy while remaining an active member of the faith and fostered dialogue among fellow elders, Hospital Liaison Committee (HLC) members, physicians, bioethicists, and organizational officials. That work ultimately evolved into AJWRB.

Under Elder’s leadership, AJWRB has evolved from an organization primarily concerned with theological reform into an independent research and educational organization dedicated to advancing informed consent, patient autonomy, and ethically sound medical decision-making. Today, its work focuses on the ethical challenges that arise when institutional authority intersects with healthcare, promoting evidence-based scholarship, professional education, and clinical guidance for healthcare professionals caring for patients whose medical decisions are shaped by religious or institutional belief systems.

Elder’s scholarship has contributed to discussions of informed consent, relational autonomy, advance directives, institutional influence, and clinical ethics. His work has been featured by the BBC and published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Medical Ethics, Anesthesia & Analgesia, and Paediatrics & Child Health.

Dieter Parczany

Senior Policy Advisor | Executive Committee

Dieter Parczany serves as Senior Policy Advisor at AJWRB. A lifelong Jehovah’s Witness until leaving the organization in 1998, his experience spans nearly every level of leadership within the denomination, providing unique insight into its organizational structure and healthcare policies.

Born in 1952 to Jehovah’s Witness parents, Parczany became a regular publisher in 1961 and was baptized in 1966. He entered the full-time ministry as a regular pioneer in 1968 and was appointed as a special pioneer in 1971. In 1974, he attended the 57th class of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead in Brooklyn, New York, before serving as a missionary in Spain until 1979.

Over the course of his service, Parczany was appointed as an elder in English-, German-, Spanish-, and Greek-speaking congregations and later served as Chairman of the Hospital Liaison Committee (HLC) in Berlin, Germany. These responsibilities placed him at the forefront of interactions between Jehovah’s Witness patients and the medical community, providing first-hand experience with the ethical and practical challenges surrounding the denomination’s blood policy.

Drawing on decades of leadership and pastoral experience, Parczany advises AJWRB on organizational policy, patient advocacy, and the intersection of religious doctrine, informed consent, and clinical ethics. His work contributes to advancing informed medical decision-making and strengthening ethical dialogue between healthcare professionals and Jehovah’s Witness patients.

Daniel Graves

Member | Executive Committee

Daniel Graves was born and raised as a third-generation Jehovah’s Witness and served for many years in positions of increasing responsibility, including pioneer, ministerial servant, and elder. Professionally, he served at both the U.S. Branch and World Headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in several departments before spending the final four years of his tenure in the Hospital Information Department, where he served as a deskman and coordinator of Hospital Liaison Committees throughout the United States.

In that capacity, he worked with physicians, hospitals, and local Hospital Liaison Committees on complex medical cases involving trauma, obstetric emergencies, hematologic disorders, and malignancies, including sickle cell disease and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. These experiences provided firsthand insight into the medical, ethical, and organizational challenges surrounding the care of Jehovah’s Witness patients who declined blood transfusions. They also fostered a practical understanding of hematologic disorders, transfusion medicine, and the ethical questions that arise when religious doctrine intersects with patient care.

After leaving Jehovah’s Witnesses more than four years ago, he completed a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. As a member of the AJWRB Executive Committee, he draws on both his unique organizational experience and his academic training to advance informed dialogue among patients, clinicians, ethicists, and former Jehovah’s Witnesses. He is committed to promoting evidence-based medical decision-making, respect for patient autonomy, and thoughtful examination of the impact of organizational blood policies on patient care.

James Matthews, B.Sc

Scientific Advisory Council Member, AJWRB

James Matthews (a pseudonym utilized to protect personal and familial privacy in light of organizational shunning policies) is a valued member of the Scientific Advisory Council and Leadership Team for AJWRB. Combining rigorous scientific training with a deeply personal understanding of bioethical dilemmas, his work focuses on advancing evidence-based medicine, patient autonomy, and informed consent regarding complex healthcare decisions.

Academic Background

James holds dual undergraduate degrees from Old Dominion University:

• Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science
• Bachelor of Arts in History

This unique academic intersection bridges hard scientific methodology with a deep historical perspective on how institutional beliefs, human ethics, and cultural dogmas influence medical decision-making over time.

Professional Experience

James currently works as a medical researcher for the United States military, contributing to applied scientific investigations and clinical advancements. This hands-on research environment has further solidified his professional commitment to empirical data, clinical transparency, and uncompromising standards of patient advocacy. He is actively preparing to apply to medical school to further his career as a clinician-scientist dedicated to patient-centered care.

Within his role at AJWRB, James applies his scientific and investigative background to critical human rights and public health research. At present, he is actively engaged in tracking, documenting, and mapping out the deaths and high-profile medical cases associated with the Watchtower Society’s blood policy. This empirical project aims to bring institutional transparency, rigorous data, and historical accountability to the devastating real-world impact of religious medical doctrines.

Personal Background & AJWRB Mission

Having been baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses at a very young age, James possesses a lifelong, firsthand familiarity with the internal culture and doctrinal mandates of the Watchtower Society. In particular, he has lived experience with how the organization’s policies regarding blood transfusions and medical choices affect individuals and families in high-stakes, critical healthcare situations.

His involvement with the AJWRB stems from an unwavering dedication to:

• Promoting accurate medical information that replaces institutional dogma with scientific reality.
• Championing ethical clarity to ensure true, uncoerced informed consent for patients navigating conscience-based healthcare choices.
• Fostering deep compassion for individuals and families impacted by restrictive religious policies surrounding medical care.

Lee Marsh, BA, APSS

Director, Patient & Family Support | Operations Directorate

Lee Marsh brings to AJWRB decades of experience in trauma counseling, survivor support, and advocacy concerning coercive control. A former Jehovah’s Witness and a survivor of spiritual, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, Lee has transformed difficult experiences from both childhood and adulthood into a sustained commitment to helping others recover their autonomy, understand the dynamics of abuse, and rebuild their lives.

After leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Lee studied counseling and devoted 13 years of her professional life exclusively to supporting adult survivors of sexual abuse. In Montreal, she founded a support service for women who had experienced sexual abuse in childhood. Her wider community work has included assisting people experiencing homelessness, supporting women affected by domestic violence, and helping individuals leaving abusive relationships and high-control religious environments.

Lee has also been a longstanding contributor to the former-Jehovah’s Witness community. She served as president and director of support services for Advocates for Awareness of Watchtower Abuses, an international organization focused on education and survivor support. In that role, she worked to increase public and professional understanding of institutional practices affecting child protection, domestic abuse, medical decision-making, and family relationships.

Her advocacy has taken many forms. Lee volunteered through an online support community serving primarily current, questioning, and former Jehovah’s Witnesses; wrote a Free Minds column addressing the challenges they face; and helped develop maps and research resources concerning legal and medical issues involving the Witness community. She has supported AJWRB’s work as well as the research and public-education efforts of Stop Mandated Shunning. Her own account of mandated shunning emphasizes its capacity to separate individuals from family and community support precisely when that support is most needed.

Lee is also a director of Stronger After Coercion, which provides specialized support to people recovering from cults, high-control groups, coercive relationships, and related forms of psychological abuse. Although much of her work takes place quietly behind the scenes, her knowledge, compassion, and survivor-centered perspective have contributed to advocacy and support initiatives across several decades.

At AJWRB, Lee helps ensure that leadership, governance, and educational work remain grounded in lived experience, trauma-informed practice, and respect for individual autonomy. Her contribution reflects a central principle of AJWRB’s mission: genuinely informed decisions require not only accurate information, but also freedom from coercion, fear, and avoidable social pressure.