Greenville, N.C. – ECU Health Medical Center has been nationally recognized in Becker’s Hospital Review as the top hospital in the country for patient experience, according to a new ranking from PEP Health. PEP Health analyzed more than 30 million online patient reviews from hospitals across the country in 2023.
According to Becker’s, PEP Health extracts behavioral insights data from patient comments shared on multiple social media and review platforms. Hospitals with at least 300 staffed beds and at least 250 patient experience comments were assessed across seven domains: fast access, effective treatment, emotional support, communication & involvement, attention to physical and environmental needs, continuity of care, and billing and administration.
“At ECU Health, creating positive patient and team member experiences is at the heart of who we are as a mission-driven organization,” said Dr. Julie Kennedy Oehlert, chief experience officer, ECU Health. “Our continuous journey toward excellence in patient care is informed by the perspectives of our patients and driven by the hearts of our team members. Our patients know that ECU Health team members are here to care for them with compassion and respect. It is gratifying to know our intentional focus on creating safe, healing environments is affirmed by the feedback of those we are honored to serve. We are incredibly grateful to our patients for their honest review of the care we provide.”
ECU Health’s commitment to creating positive patient experiences can be seen across the health system. The Outer Banks Hospital achieved 5-star status in overall patient experience in 2023 and ECU Health Bertie Hospital met requirements for 5-star status as well from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) utilizes these star ratings to summarize the patient experience, which is one aspect of hospital quality. The ratings are based on surveys that patients fill out after their inpatient stay and are designed to help patients choose excellence in health care. The HCAHPS survey captures the patient’s experience of communication with doctors and nurses, responsiveness of hospital staff, communication about medicines, cleanliness and quietness of the hospital, discharge information, transition to post-hospital care and overall rating of the hospital.
ECU Health’s providers also play an important role in supporting excellence in patient experiences. In the clinic setting, 99% of ECU Health providers are rated by their patients as 4.0 or higher out of 5 stars, with 96% of those providers being 4.5 stars or higher, according to Press Ganey LLC. ECU Health’s providers’ overall ranking as a medical group for excellence in care is 4.7 out of 5 stars based on patient reviews from Healthgrades, Google, WebMD, Wellness, Vitals and more.
“I am proud of the doctors, nurses and all team members who work tirelessly to deliver highly-reliable, human-centered care to eastern North Carolina,” said Brian Floyd, chief operating officer, ECU Health. “The experiences we create within our health care settings can leave lasting impressions on those we serve. I am fortunate to witness ECU Health team members in action every single day, and their role in compassionately caring for our community members – often during their most difficult moments – is central to our mission of improving the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, colorectal cancer is the fourth most common cancer, apart from some kinds of skin cancer.
While colorectal cancer is common, early detection and prevention can be lifesaving. Of those ages 50 to 75, only about 7 out of 10 adults in the United States are up to date with their colorectal cancer screenings. Screenings can be done in a variety of ways, some of which include colonoscopies and fecal testing. When cancer is detected through preventative screenings, treatments can begin earlier to increase the chance for positive outcomes.
No one knows the importance of screenings more so than Stephen Braddy.
Braddy grew up in eastern North Carolina and played various high school sports before going on to East Carolina University to play football as a linebacker, even playing in the 1992 season that led the Pirates to the Peach Bowl. Now, Braddy is retired and works at Washington Montessori School. He also spends time advocating for the importance of colon cancer screenings.
This cause is important to him because in 2022, after encouragement from his family and friends, he scheduled a colonoscopy at ECU Health which led his doctors to discover a mass in his colon.
“I woke up from the procedure and the doctor comes in with this look on his face and says we’ve got some issues,” says Braddy. “We couldn’t finish the colonoscopy because there was a tumor the size of an egg in the way. I was immediately sent for blood work and scans.”
Braddy was quickly scheduled for surgery on July 12, 2022. During the surgery, doctors removed part of his colon, the mass and 19 lymph nodes, as well as did a colon resection. Following the surgery, he went through four sessions of IV chemotherapy with chemotherapy medication in between.
As a former college football player, Braddy has always been an active person, and he wasn’t going to let treatment keep him from staying active.
“I wanted to show cancer up and beat it,” he says. “Right after my first chemo treatment, I got home and went on a run. I continued to work out through all the sessions.”
In addition to staying active, Braddy also fasted for 68-72 hours around each chemotherapy session. He credits both fasting and staying active as helpful in controlling his nausea and fatigue after treatment.
Since his diagnosis, Braddy has become passionate about talking to others about the importance of colorectal cancer screenings.
“If I could rewind things, I would have no hesitation to get a colonoscopy done so much sooner. The colonoscopy procedure is easy and well-worth the effort it takes to get one. A lot of people, including me, think ‘this will never happen to them.’ Screening could have prevented me from surgery, chemo and bills,” he says.
Regular screenings for colorectal cancer are recommended to begin at age 45. If you’re eligible for a screening and do not have one scheduled, take time during Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month in March to talk to your primary care provider, obstetrician-gynecologist or gastroenterologist about scheduling an appointment.
Now, Braddy is cancer-free, and continues to stay on top of his appointments to take preventative measures to stay healthy.
“If there’s one thing I would say to people it would be that just because you feel good doesn’t mean something might not be wrong,” Braddy said. “Colon cancer is very treatable if caught early. If not for yourself, schedule a screening for your family and loved ones.”
Learn more about screening locations and scheduling information on our Reminder page.
Dr. Niti Singh Armistead, the chief quality officer and chief clinical officer at ECU Health in Greenville, keeps making the right career choices.
In college at George Mason University, she switched her major from engineering to physics and pre-medicine after she discovered that there were loans available to pay for medical school. “I appreciate what programmers do every day, but I realized that my own joy was working in the medical field,” she says.
After graduating from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, she specialized in anesthesiology, thinking her physics background would be helpful. She switched to internal medicine because she found the long-term relationships with patients more enduring and satisfying.
Now, at ECU Health, she’s focused on acute care and still sees patients on a regular basis. She took on administrative roles in 2018 and 2019 before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, successfully helping steer the healthcare system during a challenging time.
“None of us knew what we were in for,” says Armistead. “For me, it all just kind of came together. How do you support an already underserved population? How do you rise to the occasion as the only healthcare system east of I-95 with an academic arm to do it all, to build the infrastructure for the testing and to educate the community? Those were the kind of interventions I got to lead.”
Read the full story in Business North Carolina.
ECU’s clinical laboratory science students — who after graduation run the nation’s medical labs in hospitals, for public health offices and in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry — got a huge boost recently with the acquisition of a new device that automates the process for identifying blood types.
Funding for the new system, some $6,600, came in part from the American Society for Clinical Pathology and the ECU Medical and Health Science Foundation’s CLS Priority fund.
The instrument, known as the Ortho Clinical Diagnostics workstation, replaces a laborious process of mixing blood samples with reagents by hand to allow laboratory professionals to quickly and accurately establish blood types and identify donated blood that can be safely transfused to a recipient.
Traditional blood analysis methods, which ECU’s Department of Clinical Laboratory Science chair Dr. Guyla Evans and her faculty peers still teach their students, involves mixing drops of blood with antibodies that register specific blood types. The process also registers Rh factor, proteins on the surface of some people’s blood cells that affect who can receive blood donations from whom.
Using the established test tube method is a time and attention intensive process.
“It can be kind of hard to teach students how to read the tubes because it’s subjective. You have to read the tubes right away, and there are a lot of steps,” said Michael Foster, a senior from Roanoke Rapids, who already works in the blood bank at ECU Health Medical Center in Greenville.
Using test tubes to identify blood samples is a tricky business: laboratory personnel must identify cell reactions by eye and they have a limited time to observe and interpret the results.
“The name of the game in blood banking is accuracy, but it’s also speed. You want to get it in the centrifuge and as soon as it’s ready to come out of the incubator and get it going,” Evans said.
The new system uses a cartridge, which requires less blood in the sampling process and has the advantage of leaving the sample readable by technicians for up to 24 hours. This allows laboratorians to double check their work or have a peer review their results.
An added benefit for the cartridge system is baked-in surety of the testing chemicals.
“You don’t have to worry about adding the wrong reagents because the cards are color-coded and the reagents are already added in,” Foster said.
Each cartridge may cost up to $25, which isn’t cheap, but Evans and Lorie Schwartz, a research technician and CLS instructor, both agree that the new system is at least as cost effective as traditional testing methods due to labor costs and the intangible benefit of assurance that the results are valid.
The new system is less mentally taxing for the medical laboratory scientist, Evans explained.
“In the blood bank, everything has to be carefully documented. Nothing is ever assumed or taken for granted—blood bankers trust no one, they believe no one,” Evans said. “If I’m going to do a cross match for two units, and the antibody screen and the blood typing, that’s 12 to 15 tubes that I have to label every time. It’s a lot faster to label one card or a couple of cards, depending on what testing you’re doing.”
The CLS department received the equipment in December, just a bit too late for the current class of students, including Foster, who will graduate in May. The seven graduating students were able to train on the gel microcolumn system during clinical rotations with ECU Health and Nash UNC Health, where they got hands-on experience.
Evans said the COVID-19 pandemic made teaching blood banking techniques very difficult because, while theory is crucial to understanding lab work, getting hands-on training is critical for learning.
Students who learned during the pandemic were dropped into the deep end during clinical rotations in working labs and had to put theory into practice, both with traditional test tube methods and the gel cartridge system.
“During clinicals, we went through quite a number of cards trying to figure out what antibodies were present in the blood because they would give us unknown samples and we would spend the entire eight hours trying to figure out what the sample was,” said Bryce Glover, a senior from Fayetteville. “If we went down the wrong path, that was one card wasted.”
Because they are eligible to work in clinical labs once their clinical rotations were completed, Foster, Glover and the other members of their cohort already have jobs in area labs.
“ECU Health and ECU’s commitment to incorporating the latest technologies into both health care delivery and hands-on training for our future workforce not only benefits students during their academic journey but also equips them with valuable skills that are highly sought after in the health care industry,” said Carolyn Merritt, ECU Health lab scientist.
“Keeping students up to date on the latest technologies, such as gel testing, is crucial for optimizing their limited time during clinical rotations. Our goal is to help prepare the next generation of high-quality health care professionals, and hands-on experience with innovative technology ensures our students are well equipped to provide important services once they enter the workforce,” Merritt said.
The advances in high tech equipment, combined with severe staffing shortages, have exacerbated what Evans sees a worrying trend — laboratory professionals aren’t seen on the hospital floors or interacting with nursing staff.
Being squirreled away in a windowless lab the majority of the workday means that medical laboratory scientists and technicians are often disconnected from their peers. Evans counsels her students to be part of the hospital and medical communities they will eventually be part of.
“They must make an effort to be seen as part of the hospital team because they usually aren’t seen,” Evans said.
While medical laboratory scientists might not be as visible as other members of the health care continuum, their role in diagnosing and treating patients can’t be overstated. With an expected need of nearly 17,000 more medical lab scientists nationwide by 2032, the critical skill set that Pirate graduates bring to hospitals and clinics is invaluable.
“When our students get into the clinical system, that’s when they really see the workflow and that last piece of their education comes together,” Evans said. “We’ve been really fortunate that our clinical sites, even though they know they’re dealing with personnel shortages, are taking students on which is extra work they don’t get compensated for. They’re doing it because they know it’s important and that is invaluable.”
Sharon and Steve McNally of New Bern have been married for more than 40 years. Now, Steve carries a little piece of his wife Sharon with him everywhere he goes.
Steve is diabetic and in 2015, he went through his first round of transplants at a hospital in their then-home state of Pennsylvania.
“It was supposed to have been a kidney and pancreas at the same time,” Steve said. “When they got me on the operating table, the pancreas wasn’t viable. So they said, ‘We’re going to do the kidney alone and we’ll get you a pancreas.’ What happened then was the hospital eventually became decertified and couldn’t do pancreas transplants anymore.”
Then, they joined the transplant list with a health system in Maryland and Steve received a pancreas transplant 30 days later. In the meantime, the new kidney had been damaged due to the lack of a functioning pancreas, but Steve said it was largely working fine until mid-2023. By that time, the McNallys had moved from Pennsylvania down to New Bern.
With Steve’s kidney function worsening, there was little time to spare. He could join another transplant list that may take eight to 10 years to find a donor, start dialysis or personally find a match to donate a kidney.
Sharon said she knew she had to step up for her husband and get tested to see if she could be a match.
“It wasn’t really hard for me because a lot of people say, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re so amazing’ or so this and that but I don’t really feel that way,” Sharon said. “I feel like we’ve been married 40 plus years. We have grandkids and kids together and how could you watch someone get more and more ill and not do something if you can? So I didn’t really think about it.”
Testing started for the two in June and preparation began right away. They found out in October they were a match and an ECU Health team performed the transplant on Nov. 7.
“I’m glad that this was something I could do,” Sharon said. “There’s a lot of people that probably couldn’t have, even if they wanted to.”
For Sharon’s part, she went home the next day while Steve stayed a couple extra days for monitoring before heading home. While they each needed some help early on after coming home, they were both happy to support each other, as they’ve been doing for more than four decades.
Dr. Margaret Romine, transplant surgeon at ECU Health, and Dr. David Leeser performed the transplant along with other members of the ECU Health transplant team. She said she was most proud that the team could take on a case like the McNallys, especially given Steve had been through a kidney and pancreas transplant previously.
“They had already been through a lot before even coming to us but they had such great attitudes and were great patients to care for,” Dr. Romine said. “We have such a great team and that really sets us apart from other programs. It’s not just about what the surgeon thinks – the nephrologists play a huge role. Our coordinators, nurses, pharmacists, social workers all play a huge role. We can’t do what we do without the entire team. Whenever we make a big decision to take on a patient like him, it’s done as a team.”
Steve and Sharon both said they were happy with their experience at ECU Health and shared appreciation for the care team that helped guide them through the process and into recovery.
Now, they are looking forward to a spring working outdoors, something they both love but missed out on last year.
Sharon said if she could share one message, it would be on the importance of organ donation.
“Organ donation is just such a wonderful thing. I mean, three different times it saved my husband,” Sharon said. “You know, a lot of people don’t want to do something like that even after they’re gone because it just it seems weird to them. But honestly, I think it’s a wonderful thing.”
NAGS HEAD — About a decade ago, the Outer Banks community suffered higher cancer mortality rates than the state and nation. Not only has that trend reversed, but now for the first time, local cancer patients can receive all their services under one roof.
Over 275 people attended the ribbon-cutting and open house on Jan. 24 for the Carol S. and Edward D. Cowell, Jr. Cancer Center. Located at 4927 S. Croatan Highway in Nags Head, it opens its doors to patients on Jan. 29.
“In 2012, Outer Banks Health didn’t have a cancer services program at all, and we were trailing the state and we were trailing the nation when it came to cancer mortality for all cancers…and we wanted to change that dynamic,” Ronnie Sloan, president of Outer Banks Health, said during brief event remarks.
The Outer Banks’ cancer mortality rate was about 6% and 7% higher than the nation and the state, respectively, Sloan said in an interview at the event.
Now, local cancer mortality rates are 6-7% lower than the state and country. The 5-year mortality for breast cancer rate dropped 50% in recent years. Even as cancer mortality rates have steadily declined across the country, “we’ve outpaced that,” Sloan said.
Carol Cowell cut the ribbon at Wednesday’s event. She made the namesake donation to the Carol S. and Edward D. Cowell, Jr. Cancer Center in Nags Head in honor of her late husband and in appreciation of the local community.
Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Cowell said in an interview that she is a cancer survivor who received treatment in Elizabeth City in 2005. The Outer Banks didn’t offer cancer services then, but she was greatly impressed by “the community sense that you got” from local health care professionals and from the community at large.
Fundraising for the center was similarly a community effort.
“This has been just an amazing journey,” Tess Judge said during her event remarks. Judge is chair of the board of directors for Outer Banks Health and co-chaired the fundraising team with Cindy Thornsvard.
Judge said she lost her mother and a son-in-law to cancer, and her daughter-in-law is struggling with it now, “so cancer services and the wonderful team we have here is just so special not only to me but to many.”
Fundraising for the center began during COVID, and their original goal of $4 million was bumped up to $6 million as the costs of building supplies soared.
According to Sloan, nearly $6.5 million has been raised for the center.
“We did that because of all of you, and the tremendous support this community has given to this cancer center,” Judge said.
Stephanie Anderson, a community member who had lost people to cancer, hiked the entire Appalachian Trail last year and raised about $10,000 for the center in the process, said Jennifer Schwartzenberg, director of community outreach and development for Outer Banks Health.
The journey to the center
Outer Banks Health hired its first director of cancer services in 2012, said Sloan, who came aboard in mid-2011.
“In 2013, the board of trustees made a fantastic decision,” Sloan said during his public remarks. They chose to purchase the radiation therapy center that was closing about two miles north of the hospital.
“We didn’t want our community to have to drive two hours each way” for treatment, he said.
Dr. Charles Shelton, a radiation oncologist, began working at Outer Banks Health — then called The Outer Banks Hospital — in 2014, and he leads the cancer services team, Wendy Kelly, marketing director for Outer Banks Health, said in an email.
Shelton set a goal of creating and maintaining an accredited cancer program to reduce the high cancer mortality rate among residents of Dare and Currituck counties, Kelly said.
“It’s been a dream of this organization since 2015 to build a facility that would allow patients to receive the highest-quality, compassionate cancer care all under one roof right here on the Outer Banks,” Kelly said.
Supported by its two partners, ECU Health and Chesapeake Regional Healthcare, along with the generosity of the local community, “that dream is now a reality,” she said.
In 2016, the Commission on Cancer of The American College of Surgeons granted a “Three-Year Accreditation with a Commendation” to The Outer Banks Hospital, which the facility has “proudly maintained” since that time, according to Kelly.
“Additionally, we are one of only eight critical access hospitals in the nation with this accreditation, and the only one nationally to have an accredited breast care program,” she added.
Outer Banks Health is one of 20 critical access hospitals in North Carolina, which have 25 beds or fewer and receive cost-based reimbursement, according to the North Carolina Division of Health and Human Services website.
“Outer Banks Health is an approved Medicare and Medicaid provider and participates with most commercial insurance companies,” Kelly said.
Sloan said that the new “comprehensive center” allows them to offer the “best care possible.”
The entire cancer team can quickly make decisions about patients in consult with one another as “concerns pop up,” and having the dedicated center eliminates the need for patients to go from the first to second floor of the hospital for care, then across the busy bypass for radiation treatment, he said.
Kelly expressed gratitude for all the community support of the center, which included the over 275 people who attended the event on Wednesday.
In addition to Shelton, the cancer services team also includes a director, three radiation therapists, a radiation nurse, a genetics extender, a physicist, a dosimetrist, a licensed practical nurse, 11 registered nurses, a nurse navigator, a financial navigator, a lay navigator, a social worker, a practice manager and three front desk monitors, according to Kelly.
“Our search continues for a permanent medical oncologist, and in the interim Dr. Michael Spiritos, formerly of Duke Health, has agreed to serve in that capacity,” Kelly said in her email. “Additionally, Dr. John Barton serves as a medical oncologist at the center.”
“Congratulations Outer Banks Health on this much-needed and impressive expansion,” Robert DeFazio, chairman of the board of directors for the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce, said during his event remarks.
Frostbite isn’t the only concern with the frigid temperatures expected in eastern North Carolina this weekend.
“You can’t smell it. You can’t see it. You can’t taste it,” said ECU Health Chief for the Division of Medical Toxicology Dr. Jason Hack
Dr. Hack said carbon monoxide poisoning can sicken people when their furnaces malfunction or they use other means to heat their homes.
He said that includes, “HVAC, our heaters in our home. Portable heaters, propane portable heaters that some people might bring in, or if they lose their electricity because of an ice storm or something along those lines, they might want to bring in a generator out of the storm or close to the home.”
Dr. Hack also said people should never sit in a running car to escape the cold if the heat is out at their home.
“Some people would tend to sit in their car and turn on turn on their vehicle while it’s still in their attached garage,” he said, “Even with the door open, these can be sources of enough carbon monoxide to injure or even, unfortunately, kill people within the home itself.”
It’s not a good idea, but a dangerous one, to use the gas stove in your kitchen to warm up the house. Dr. Hack said, “It could be producing low levels of carbon monoxide that might accumulate.”
And the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning can be non-specific.
“It can look like a lot of other things,” he said, “Such as weakness or dizziness. Some people complain of some shortness of breath. Headache is one of the most common presenting symptoms of carbon monoxide. Confusion. Some people actually complain of chest pain or palpitations and fainting.”
Dr. Hack said the best defense is a working carbon monoxide detector in every bedroom and living space in the house; he recommends that people to make sure the batteries are fresh and they’re working properly before the cold air arrives this weekend.
According to the National Institutes of Health, about 1,200 people die in the U.S. from accidental CO poisoning annually and more than 100,000 people visit the emergency department each year.
Greenville, N.C. – East Carolina University and ECU Health are launching an initiative to increase the number of adult gerontology acute care nurse practitioners serving as advanced practice health care professionals in ECU Health’s critical care settings. This effort builds on the collective commitment of both organization to solve the rural health challenges in the region as well as the state.
The effort – conceived by nursing and education leaders from ECU’s College of Nursing and ECU Health – will benefit both the university and the health system, said Dr. Bim Akintade, the dean of ECU’s College of Nursing. An investment of nearly $1.5 million over five years from ECU Health will increase the College of Nursing’s capacity to graduate trained and qualified nurses who can meet the growing need for acute care practitioners to treat the hospital’s sickest patients.
“ECU Health is proud of its close relationship with ECU and the College of Nursing, particularly as it pertains to our efforts to adapt to the national health care workforce shortage,” said Dr. Daphne Brewington, ECU Health’s vice president of nursing. “Our success as an academic health system is predicated on our ability to leverage clinical and academic excellence in order to ensure we can provide high quality health care for the residents of eastern North Carolina.”
Nationally, the aging population is growing, accompanied by the shortage of health care workers. This collaboration not only strengthens the health care workforce in eastern North Carolina but also contributes to improved health outcomes and increased accessibility to specialized care for older adults in the communities of eastern North Carolina.
Through this effort, ECU Health is helping fund the development of a new Adult Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Post Graduate Certificate, which will train current nurse practitioners to treat acute care adult patients. The investment also provides funding for a program director who teaches and an additional part-time faculty member as well as administrative support and operational costs.
The program will reserve six enrollments per enrollment cycle for current ECU Health employees, highlighting the importance of providing specialized training that benefits the region.
“Our plan is to take the next few months to work with our partners at ECU Health and find clinical placement sites in critical care environments for ECU Health employees who enroll in the program,” Akintade said. “They need nurses, and training nurses is our business and passion. This collaboration is a win-win and makes complete sense for the University, the Heath System, the region, and the state.
Clinical placements for students employed by ECU Health will take place at ECU Health facilities, which will help to alleviate a major sticking point for training advance practice nurses – finding clinical placements for students in training. It also has the potential to create pathways for those in the program to experience acute care at both ECU Health Medical Center and in ECU Health’s regional community hospitals.
The initiative isn’t limited to the current arrangement and both ECU and ECU Health continue to explore ways to leverage this effort to design innovative solutions that benefit the people of eastern North Carolina.
“Eastern North Carolina depends on institutions like ECU Health and ECU to collaborate on innovative solutions that drive us towards our mission of improving the health and well-being of the region,” said Dr. Trish Baise, ECU Health’s chief nursing executive. “As a health system serving 1.4 million people, we need more nurses at every level in order to meet the region’s immense needs. The College of Nursing is one of the premiere nursing education schools in the nation and our health system is great training ground for developing a health care workforce with a focus on rural health challenges. I am excited to see the benefit this program will have on our patients and team members.”
Dr. Carl E. Haisch, professor of surgery in surgical immunology and transplantation and vice chair of surgical education in the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, has been inducted into the American College of Surgeons Academy of Master Surgeon Educators.
Dr. Carl E. Haisch
Haisch is among a cohort of 63 surgical educators to be inducted into the academy in Chicago this fall.
“Dr. Haisch has contributed greatly to the education mission of the ECU Department of Surgery over many years,” said Dr. Eric J. DeMaria, interim chair of Brody’s Department of Surgery. “We continue to rely upon his expertise and experience as we develop new and better ways to educate surgeons both at ECU and around the world going forward. We are extremely pleased that the American College of Surgeons has recognized him for his many important contributions to education.”
Haisch is a dedicated educator whose experience in the field includes attending surgeon in transplant and trauma surgery. He served as chief of transplant at ECU for 20 years and was a member of the trauma team for 15 years. He has served on numerous local, regional and national committees and served as chair of the board of Carolina Donor Services. He is also a member in numerous transplant and trauma societies and is a member of the Society of University Surgeons, the American Surgical Association, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the Southern Surgical Association.
Once inducted, members actively engage in advancing the academy’s programs and goals, which are to advance the science and practice of innovative lifelong surgical education, training, and scholarship in the changing milieu of health care; foster the exchange of creative ideas and collaboration; support the development and recognition of faculty; underscore the importance of lifelong surgical education and training; positively impact quality and patient safety; disseminate advances in education and training to all surgeons; and offer mentorship to surgeon educators throughout their professional careers.
“The Academy of Master Surgeons Educators, a vital and ‘living body’ of the American College of Surgeons, continues its legacy of advancing the science and practice of surgical education. The academy is pleased to induct the 2023 cohort of distinguished and highly accomplished educators. This recognition is a true testament to the unwavering commitment of the college to develop and promote ‘best practices’ in surgical education, with the overarching goal to always improve patient care,” said Dr. L.D. Britt, past president of the ACS and co-chair of the academy’s steering committee.
Haisch’s other activities and honors as a surgeon educator include serving on the executive committee of the Association of Program Directors in Surgery and its foundation. He has served as a general surgery program director, surgery clerkship director, associate dean for faculty development and interim associate dean for student affairs. He has received numerous teaching awards including the Bernard Vick Teaching Award, the Distinguished Professor for Teaching from the UNC Board of Governors and the ECU Achievement in International Teaching Award. He was the honorary first recipient of the Carl Haisch Humanism Award initiated by the surgical residents in Brody’s Department of Surgery.
The ACS Academy of Master Surgeon Educators works to advance the science and practice of education across all surgical specialties. Individuals are selected as members, associate members, or affiliate members following a stringent peer review process. This year’s cohort includes 27 member inductees, 35 associate members, and one affiliate member. The first inaugural cohort was inducted in 2018 and the academy has grown to 358 professionals who represent 10 surgical specialties other than general surgery. Inductees are from 18 states and the District of Columbia. They come from 10 countries including the United States.
The ACS is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The college is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an influential advocate for all surgical patients. The college has more than 88,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world.
Dr. Audy Whitman is an eastern North Carolinian, through and through. He was born in the farming town of Seven Springs – a town of roughly 80 people – in Wayne County.
Like in many towns in eastern North Carolina, its citizens struggle with poverty and access to health care. It is there, in Seven Springs, where Dr. Whitman’s rural upbringing helped him discover a love for medicine that influences his work today.
Today, Dr. Whitman is a family medicine physician for ECU Health and clinical assistant professor at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, but back in Seven Springs, he was a helping hand in the tobacco fields, braving the eastern North Carolina heat and humidity.
“There is no more powerful motivator in the universe, in my humble opinion, than standing in the middle of a tobacco field in the late summer with 99 percent humidity, no shade and it’s 100 degrees outside,” Dr. Whitman said. “Your hands are caked with tobacco gum. The nicotine is soaking through your skin, so you feel nauseous all the time. Those long days taught me a great work ethic but they were also powerful motivators.”
Rural health care realities
Americans who live in rural areas make up 20% of the United States population and residents in these areas face a myriad of challenges: shorter life expectancy, higher mortality, higher rates of poverty, fewer local doctors and greater distances to travel to see health care providers. Only 10% of U.S. physicians currently practice in rural areas.
Physician shortages are no secret across the country, with the Association of American Medical Colleges estimating a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034, and rural areas are at an even greater risk.
The Brody School of Medicine was founded over 40 years ago to train primary care physicians to provide care for rural eastern North Carolina. These challenges inform the medical school’s mission and its proven track record is best represented by the fact that Brody is No. 1 in North Carolina and No. 2 in the United States in the percent of graduates in the last decade who chose careers in family medicine.
Programs like the Rural Family Medicine Residency Program take that work a step further by focusing on initiatives that help place providers in rural areas. Studies show that family medicine residents who spent 50% or more of their training time in rural settings were at least five times more likely than residents with no rural training to practice in a rural setting.
“Rural health care is under duress, and our rural communities need solutions,” said Dr. Michael Waldrum, ECU Health CEO and dean of the Brody School of Medicine. “The Rural Family Medicine Residency Program is another great example of ECU Health and Brody understanding what the community needs are and creating new pathways to educate physicians to meet the community’s needs and improve the health and well-being of those communities.”
Setting a path forward
After Dr. Whitman was approached to create and administer the program, things moved quickly. A “national guru for all things family medicine” made a visit to eastern North Carolina to consider the best locations for residents to begin their rural training. Dr. Whitman and team reached out to other universities and health systems with established programs and traveled to learn about rural organization structure and rural curriculum best practices. Two years later, the Rural Family Medicine Residency Program had its first cohort ready for training.
The first year of the program features training at ECU Health Medical Center, a Level I Trauma Center, and helps set the residents up for success when they get to the rural environments in their second year.
“Anything and everything you can imagine seeing in residency training, you’re going to see at the medical center,” Dr. Whitman said. “We provide this very intense, inpatient-heavy first-year experience for these rural residents where they get to see really sick, really complicated patients with lots of resources at their disposal so they can learn how to take care of these really complicated patients. After their first year of training, when they’ve taken all of these lessons learned, they can go out into these rural communities and apply those lessons learned where they’re the only show in town.”
Dr. Whitman added that while Greenville and eastern North Carolina are rural, the more than 1.4 million patients served through the ECU Health system creates a high volume of patients at ECU Health Medical Center, and the exposure to so many patients during their training is also hugely beneficial for the rural residents.
“An institution like ECU Health boasts a 974 bed, Level I academic medical center where residents train alongside some of the best and brightest health care minds in the state,” said Dr. Jason Higginson, executive dean at Brody. “Medical residents can then serve in our more rural hospitals to apply that knowledge to underserved populations, building a connection to the community in which they serve and making a real difference in the lives of patients.”
Dr. Zeel Shah
Drs. Zeel Shah and Jim Jaralene Porquez were part of the inaugural cohort for rural family medicine residents. Dr. Shah practiced and trained at Roanoke-Chowan Community Health Center in Ahoskie and Dr. Porquez at Goshen Medical Center in Beulaville, both of which are Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) that serve at-risk and underserved rural populations. The mission and vision of these FQHC organizations align with the mission and vision of ECU Health. Together, they seek to augment scarce health care resources in rural communities, improve the health metrics of the communities they serve, and encourage the residents that train in these rural communities to establish roots and continue serving these rural communities after graduation from their residency training program.
Dr. Shah said the year in Greenville was a great experience before continuing her residency training with a focus on serving the rural community of Ahoskie.
“In Greenville you have a lot of resources, but it’s a learning curve to rotate through the different specialties,” Dr. Shah said. “In Ahoskie, the challenges are different. Social determinants of health care, such as finances and distance, play a significant role, and you don’t have the same resources. You learn quite a lot about how to make your limited resources go a long way by relying on creative strategies while using medical expertise you picked up in Greenville.”
Now, as graduates of the program and full-time physicians with ECU Health, Drs. Shah and Porquez feel established in their respective communities and have built trusting relationships with patients, families and fellow team members. Both said the community aspect and truly knowing their patients are among the most rewarding parts of their rural experience. For Dr. Porquez, feeling love, trust and appreciation from her patients has made her time in Duplin County special and a place that she plans to call home after her residency.
“What really drew me into my community clinic in Duplin County specifically, is that my patients are very appreciative of what I do for them,” Dr. Porquez said. “They care so much about my time, my effort and my expertise, and I think in just a couple of years I have built that strong trust and relationship with them. I feel like I don’t just treat them with their disease, but I go further than that. I treat them as a whole, and I get to know their whole well-being. I see them as a whole person and not just the disease that I treat.”
Early milestones
Dr. Jim Jaralene Porquez
For Drs. Shah and Porquez, the personal connections built through the program are so strong that both decided to practice in eastern North Carolina following the completion of the program in 2024. Their graduation, along with the other residents in the first cohort, represent a significant milestone in the program’s short history and help ensure rural communities have access to specially trained, high-quality rural family medicine providers.
Dr. Whitman said he’s proud to see two members of the first cohort choose to stay and make a difference in communities like the one in which he was raised. The successful launch enabled the team to think bigger, and the program now features a new site in Halifax County with an expanded class size of nine residents. The program in general will grow from its original size of 10 residents to a total of 27 residents by 2026.
“Moving forward, I see nothing but growth for us,” Dr. Whitman said. “We are truly doing mission-driven work and trying to bridge the chasm of health care disparities of urban centers and rural areas here in North Carolina.”
Dr. Waldrum agreed and said he sees the program as the beginning of something special for eastern North Carolina and rural medicine.
“My hope is that we can take the knowledge gained through the Rural Family Medicine Residency Program and apply those lessons towards other specialized clinical areas of expertise in the near future,” Dr. Waldrum said. “We are proving that we can be highly successful in creating rural residency tracks and our historic success training rural providers who go on to practice here in North Carolina is a further testament of our ability to create unique solutions that meet the needs of those we serve.”