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Cabarrus County Schools

December 18, 2009 by · Comments Off on Cabarrus County Schools 

Cabarrus County Schools:RALEIGH, N.C. – Compassionate, knowledgeable, engaged in the community and a leader in his profession. These are the hallmarks that have come to define Dr. Charles W. Rhodes, a Family Physician from Concord, and the 2009 North Carolina Family Physician of the Year. The North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians honored Dr. Rhodes with the award during a brief ceremony in Asheville in early December.

Dr. Rhodes was recognized for embracing all of the key ideals of the specialty, including his lifelong commitment to delivering both comprehensive and coordinated care to his patients, helping to advance the specialty of family medicine and his tireless efforts in serving his local community.

A Full Scope of Practice – House Calls Too
Dr. Rhodes has been providing the full scope of family medicine to the good citizens of Cabarrus County since 1987 when he became the second physician to join Mount Pleasant Family Physicians. The clinic would grow into the 19th largest employer in Cabarrus County, with fifty physicians and thirteen individual facilities. Through it all, Rhodes’ deep commitment to his patients has stayed largely the same, focused mainly on continuity, strong relationships with his patients and their families, and adept clinical skill. His current practice includes out-patient and in-patient care, as well as weekly home visits to his elderly patients. One patient described how Dr. Rhodes has partnered with their entire family for over ten years, specifically mentioning the house calls Rhodes still provides.

Impact on the Family Medicine Specialty
In addition to patient care, Dr. Rhodes juggles several executive duties and has helped lead a number of efforts to strengthen the health care system in and around Cabarrus County. One the most significant was Rhodes’ instrumental work in helping to establish the Cabarrus Family Medicine Residency Program, a program that has been directly responsible for the training of eighty family physicians since its inception. Dr. Rhodes played a significant part in the leadership of the former Cabarrus Memorial Hospital (now CMC-Northeast) and helped form the Department of Family Medicine there in 1992. He also has been active in the Cabarrus County Medical Society, taught residents and physicians on innumerable topics, and has been active with several health care organizations.

Service to His Community
Beyond his professional pursuits, Dr. Rhodes is very active within the community, donating his time to several community service and betterment organizations. He has served with distinction at the Cabarrus County Home Health, the Board of Health, his local library and his church, Glorieta Baptist Church in Concord. He’s been noted as the driving force in establishing a global health program serving the Dominican Republic and teaching other churches in the area on how to establish these types of mission programs elsewhere. This breadth of service is a testament that Dr. Rhodes spirit of service goes far beyond the clinic and hospital.

Dr. Rhodes obtained his undergraduate degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1976, went on to attend medical school at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University, and completed his residency training at ECU. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Prior to entering private practice, Dr. Rhodes served our US Air Force, rising to the rank of Major. He continues to practice in Mt Pleasant where he began in 1987 and currently serves as the Executive Vice President and Medical Director of Cabarrus Family Medicine.

About the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians, Inc. and the American Academy of Family Physicians
The North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians, Inc. (NCAFP) is a non-profit professional association headquartered in Raleigh that serves nearly 2,700 family physicians, family medicine residents and medical students across the state. It is the largest medical specialty association in North Carolina and is a constituent chapter of the 94,000 member-strong American Academy of Family Physicians, based in Leawood, Kansas.

For more information about the NCAFP, please visit the Academy’s website at www.ncafp.com. For assistance in coordinating interviews with Dr. Charles W. Rhodes, 2009 Family Physician of the Year, please contact Peter Graber, Director of Communications by phone at (919) 833-2110; by fax (919) 833-1801; or by email at pgraber@ncafp.com

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