ECU Health and the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University graduated the first-ever cohort of resident physicians in the Rural Family Medicine Residency Program on June 30, before officially welcoming the latest class of resident physicians into the newly expanded program on July 1, marking two milestones in a program designed to help meet the academic rural health mission.
Launched in 2021, the Rural Family Medicine Residency Program provides recent medical school graduates interested in serving as family medicine physicians in rural communities first-hand experience in caring for patients in the kind of underserved settings they plan to practice in upon completion of their residency training.
The inaugural class of program graduates and their plans for practicing are as follows:
Dr. Jim Jaralene Porquez will start a new family medicine outpatient practice located in the ECU Health Multispecialty Clinic — Kenansville and provide hospitalist coverage at ECU Health Duplin Hospital.Dr. Zeel Shah will serve as a hospitalist at ECU Health Beaufort Hospital and will also provide precepting to resident physicians at Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center.Dr. Raza Syed will join a sports medicine fellowship program in Spokane, Washington, with plans to return to North Carolina after his one-year fellowship commitment to start practice.Dr. Amy White Jones will move to rural western Minnesota to practice outpatient medicine at Sanford Health System.
“I could not be more proud of the four inaugural graduates from the ECU Health Rural Family Medicine Residency Program, who have all embraced the rural mission and helped pioneer this important program,” said Dr. Audy Whitman, program director of the program. “Each of these physicians have a passion for serving rural communities and have embraced the challenge of providing care in areas where their services are critically needed. Their unique training has given them a unique understanding of how to deliver high-quality primary care in rural environments and I take immense pride in knowing they will have an incredible impact in the communities in which they will soon practice.”
Despite rural communities representing nearly 20% of the U.S. population, only 10% of U.S. physicians practice in rural areas. The ECU Health Rural Family Medicine Residency Program aims to increase the number of physicians practicing in rural America, especially eastern North Carolina.
The program exposes resident physicians to the breadth of family medicine — in both an academic medical center environment and in rural environments — so they are well-prepared to provide comprehensive care in a variety of practice settings.
The program also received recent approval from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to expand its class size and add an additional training site location, bringing the program to nine residents per class across three sites: in Ahoskie at the Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center and ECU Health Roanoke-Chowan Hospital; in Duplin County at Goshen Medical Center in Beulaville and ECU Health Duplin Hospital in Kenansville; and in Roanoke Rapids at Rural Health Group Halifax Medical Specialists and ECU Health North Hospital, which is the newest training site in the program.
The newest Rural Family Medicine Residency Program class includes:
Dr. Flora Danquah, Ahoskie SiteDr. Dan Pham, Ahoskie SiteDr. Daima Shawl, Ahoskie SiteDr. Andrew Mancheno-Rubio, Duplin SiteDr. Shelley Matthews, Duplin SiteDr. Jaya Purathur, Duplin siteDr. Tanweer Hoosen, Roanoke Rapids SiteDr. Tobi Okafor, Roanoke Rapids SiteDr. Joy Onyeanun, Roanoke Rapids Site
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