HOMETOWN HELP
Featuring Multi-Year Grantee
the Community Practitioner Program ($10,000,000)
Highlighting Pembroke Pediatrics
Pembroke, NC
Big city living may be attractive to some, but for physician Joey Bell rural Robeson county is home. Bell runs a pediatric clinic and sees patients from all over the county, many of whom are Native American.
Because it is so difficult to recruit physicians and medical staff to rural areas like Pembroke, Bell participates in the North Carolina Medical Society Foundation's Community Practitioner Program. The program attracts and retains quality physicians, physician assistants and family nurse practitioners in rural areas by providing loan repayment assistance in return for five years of primary care service to a rural community. Through his participation in the program, Bell recruited all three of his physician’s assistants who help him provide much needed care to the children of Robeson County.
Since 2006, the BCBSNC Foundation has supported the Community Practitioner Program through a five-year $10 million grant to increase access to quality medical care in rural and underserved areas across the state.
