Time spent working with uninsured and underinsured patients helped bring Dr. Margaret Pearce back to her home state to train in ECU Health’s Rural Family Medicine Residency Program. After spending three years training in some of the region’s most rural communities, she made the decision to continue serving where her skills are most needed: right here in eastern North Carolina
“I’m a problem solver,” said Dr. Pearce. “My mom has her PhD in math and would always do math problems with us. I like to approach cases with my eyes focused on finding a solution and doing the most that I can with a patient in the room, regardless of the re
According to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, one in six rural adults lack health insurance and adults in rural areas are 1.5 times more likely to be uninsured than people living in urban areas
The same data says those residents also experience up to 1.8 times as much difficulty accessing health care services than urban residents. Nearly 75% of North Carolina’s 100 counties have reported limited access to local primary care available in their county. Those are the people Dr. Pearce said she feels called to help the most
Dr. Pearce was born in Greensboro but moved around often growing up due to her father’s career. That included a prolonged stay in Texas, prior to returning to the Cary area for middle and high school. After she graduated from Western Carolina University with an undergraduate degree in chemistry, she entered the workforce before pursuing a master’s degree in <a href="https://healthylife7.com/champions-to-advance-public-health/" title="Champions to advance public health“>public health administration from Thomas Jefferson University. She worked in public health in Winston-Salem before she returned to Thomas Jefferson for medical school.
When it came time to apply for her residency, Dr. Pearce’s father was battling kidney cancer. She knew that she had to go somewhere close to home as he recovered from the disease and knew she wanted to work with rural patients
“I’m not a city person,” Pearce said. “In public health, I learned a lot about issues facing the uninsured and underinsured population. Those are my people, that’s where I’m supposed to be to help them. There are a lot of places facing those issues, but I knew rural medicine was where I wanted to make a difference.”
ECU Health’s Rural Family Medicine Residency Program provided Dr. Pearce hands-on experience at ECU Health Medical Center and most recently ECU Health Duplin Hospital in Kenansville. The program launched in 2021 and prepares family medicine resident physicians to provide comprehensive care across a variety of settings. Data shows that family medicine residents who spend 50% or more of their training time in rural settings are at least five times more likely to stay and practice in rural communities than physicians with no rural training.
“One of the most pressing challenges in rural health care is having enough clinicians available to treat really complex patients and help them prevent further health complications,” said Dr. Michael Waldrum, CEO of ECU Health, and dean of the Brody School of Medicine. “By exposing family medicine resident physicians to the disparities rural communities face, they experience the impact they can have on truly vulnerable patients. For some, that is a calling and this gives them an opportunity to answer that call.”
Dr. Pearce will continue to practice medicine at ECU Health Family Medicine in Richlands. She believes the experiences she helped patients navigate throughout her rural family medicine residency training, namely helping patients improve their own medical literacy to better understand preventive efforts and diagnoses, will translate to residents in Onslow County
“Sometimes you have to reach people where they are and really work with them to get on the same page with their health care and treatment,” Dr. Pearce said. “I’m grateful I can serve a similar population to the one that I worked with during my residency and still have access to rehis area, so I know it’s the right place for me to be.”
