Dr. Caroline Roberts, a medical resident at Prospect
Hill Community Health Center, has stories to share.
There’s the one about the patient with
advanced diabetes who came to the front
desk. He was soon surrounded by a group
of childhood friends at the clinic who had
all grown up on his street. They had an
animated conversation. And when they
realized he couldn’t afford his copay,
they pooled their money to give him
the $25 he needed.
Then there was the patient in labor
who requested that her mom be present.
Dr. Roberts said, “Of course!” The mom
entered the room—and Dr. Roberts
immediately recognized her. It turned
out that the mom was also a patient
of Dr. Roberts. They were soon joined
in joyous and loud fashion by a tiny,
precious third patient.
The opportunity to help those less
fortunate and the privilege of caring for
three generations are just a few of the
many reasons Dr. Roberts loves her job at
Prospect Hill. Dr. Roberts is part of the UNC
School of Medicine’s Teaching Health Center
Family Residency Track, a Foundation-
supported partnership between UNC
and Piedmont Health, an organization
that runs seven federally qualified health
centers. The goal of the partnership is to
increase opportunities for family medicine
residents to begin their careers caring for
underserved communities.
Two former residents from the program
have taken permanent positions at the
clinic. Dr. Roberts would like to be the next.
Dr. Roberts grew up in suburban
Burlington, 30 minutes from Prospect Hill.
As the crow flies, it’s just a few miles away.
Culturally speaking, it’s a different world.
“I wanted to serve the entirety of the
community around me,” Dr. Roberts says.
The clinic, located in a small, rural
town in Caswell County, opened its doors
in 1970 as the state’s first federally qualified
community health center. It saw just
15 patients per day. Today, the clinic sees
almost 100 patients a day from Caswell
and four surrounding counties. The clinic
provides comprehensive on-site services
including primary care, dental, nutrition
counseling and pharmacy.
Dr. Roberts’ emphasis is maternal
and child health. She calls her work at
Prospect Hill “an amazing opportunity”—
one that has given her a much more
varied experience than she would get in
an academic setting or at a typical family
practice. For one, Dr. Roberts says, she
has become more culturally aware about
her patients and their limited resources.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of
70 percent of the clinic’s patients are
Spanish-speaking, many of themmigrant
workers. She has seen pregnant women
who delay prenatal care until they’ve
paid off bills from a previous pregnancy
and patients with types of advanced
diseases that doctors don’t typically
see in other settings.
