Division News

The School of Medicine kicked off a new restorative justice pilot program last week with participants from across School of Medicine departments and units.

Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, MD, associate professor in the Duke Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, has been selected as a member of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine. She is among 13 leaders in health care and public health confirmed as new members by the institute's board of directors and announced December 5, 2022.

Dr. Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, associate professor in Duke’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, is the recipient of the 2022 FHLI Community Achievement Award. The award is presented by the Foundation for Health Leadership & Innovation and the North Carolina Health Association.

George R. Parkerson, Jr., MD, MPH, Chair Emeritus of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (FMCH), passed away in May 2022. He was 94 years old.

Dr. Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, associate professor in Duke’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, has been named North Carolina's 2021 Family Physician of the Year by the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians (NCAFP). The honor is the most prestigious award from the NCAFP, the state's largest specialty medical association, comprised of more than 4,300 members.

Raman Norhia, M.D., joined the clinical faculty of the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health on August 1, 2021. Norhia earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in 2015, and completed the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency Program in 2019. He completed the Duke Hospital Medicine Fellowship at Duke Regional Hospital in 2021. Norhia will care for patients at Duke Family Medicine Center.

Faculty in the Division of Family Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health have become the first to officially move into Duke Health’s new clinical practice model.

Annie Dotson joined the clinical faculty of the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health on July 1, 2021. She received a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts from Florida State University in 2007, a Master of Science in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2011, and her Doctor of Medicine from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2015. Dotson completed family medicine residency at the University of New Mexico in 2018, and was the NRSA Primary Care Research Fellow at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2021. Dotson will care for patients at Duke Family Medicine Center and Duke Regional Hospital.

Last year, we chronicled the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic from the eyes of those on the front lines in the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health. We recently caught up with two of those providers — Debra Whiteheart, MHS, PA-C, assistant medical director at Duke Family Medicine Center, and John Ragsdale, M.D., chief of the Division of Family Medicine and vice chair for clinical services in the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health — to see how things are going one year later.

After 27 years at Duke and a long career working in family medicine and occupational medicine, Maggie Gradison, M.D, MHS-CL, is ready to celebrate her retirement by driving to the Southwest with her husband.

“I wanted to travel when I retire and visit friends around the country and the world,” Gradison says. “But it will have to wait until it’s safe to travel.”