For the three years that she has worked as a physician assistant (PA) at an ApolloMD partner hospital in rural North Carolina, Noelle Griffin has focused on key aspects of her career:
● Taking excellent care of the patients who visit the emergency room
● Taking advantage of ApolloMD-offered education and training opportunities to learn, sharpen, and leverage new skills — especially for treatments or procedures that are not common or available at her community hospital
● Focusing on a leadership position at ApolloMD

The 2022 ApolloMD Leadership Conference held an awards ceremony where we recognized the dedication and excellence of various clinicians. These team members are applauded by their colleagues as they receive accolades such as Medical Director of the Year and Lead APC of the Year.

The practice of rural medicine comes second nature to Robert Arledge, PA, Lead APC at Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital in Elkin, NC. Upon graduation from Emory University’s Physician Assistant program, he jumped at the chance to join the staff of a small-town hospital in Jackson, Georgia. While training at a busy metro facility gave him a top-notch education with the latest technology at his fingertips, he finds the rural environment brings a deeper connection to the upbringing that led him to seek a career in health care.

For Fatimah Zaghari, PA-C, joining the Atrium Health Union Hospital Emergency Department team in 2019 gave her a homecoming to the professional family she’d formed along her career pathway. She now practices alongside some of the same mentors who urged her to keep pursuing her goals.

Lina Seda, PA has donated more than 5000 ounces of breast milk to babies in need including an infant dependent upon NG tube-feeding, the baby of an HIV+ mother, and one baby struggling with Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome (FPIES), a type of food allergy affecting the gastrointestinal tract. This is an incredible voluntary act to help babies and support their mothers.

In our latest Profile of Courage, a young North Carolina physician assistant (PA) finds himself monitoring juvenile COVID-19 patients quarantined at border patrol and embracing the challenge to serve kids in need. For Todd Harris, completing his MPAS in 2020 and then starting as a physician assistant at CaroMont Regional Medical Center in Gastonia, N.C. plants a long-awaited milestone on his journey toward a fulfilling career in health care.

For Peter Hairston, military service stands as a family tradition he hoped to continue. His father served as did previous generations before him. For Hairston the timing and prospects didn’t align until 2012 when a respected colleague, Dr. Henry Heard, presented a new pathway to uniform. “I got a wild hare and joined the military,” Hairston declares.