Ophelia Garmon-Brown, MD, Named NC Family Physician of the Year

garmon-brown6 Dr. Ophelia Garmon-Brown, a family physician from Charlotte and a member of the North Carolina Medical Society Foundation Board of Trustees, was named by the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians (NCAFP) as the North Carolina Family Physician of the Year along with the late Dr. Robert S. “Bobby” Jones, Jr., MD, of Shelby, NC.   NCAFP announced Dr. Garmon-Brown’s selection last Friday during its 2012 Annual Meeting and Winter Family Physicians Weekend in Asheville.  

Dr. Garmon-Brown, a long-time NCMS member, was selected for being a tireless advocate for her patients, her commitment to serving the poor and underserved, and for her advocacy and leadership both within organized medicine and her local community. 

Dr. Ophelia Garmon-Brown was born in Detroit, Michigan but spent her teen years in rural Bertie County, North Carolina.  She began her higher education at North Carolina Central University, completed her medical degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed her residency in family medicine at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.  Dr. Garmon-Brown was the first female African-American graduate of the residency program.

“She has never forgotten her roots of growing up in a Detroit housing project,” said Dr. Brian Forrest, Chair of the NCAFP Board of Directors, who presented the award to Dr. Garmon-Brown. “And now, at least one day a week, you will find her at a free clinic she co-founded more than a decade ago, as she states ‘feeding her soul’ by caring for poor, uninsured patients at the Charlotte Community Health Clinic.  And her service doesn’t stop there.  Every summer she serves patients in other countries from Kenya to Guyana to Jamaica to South Africa.  For her work, she was honored as the 2010 Charlotte Woman of the Year.”

 
 

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