Division News

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.”

Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, M.D., FAAFP, associate professor of family medicine and community health, is the 2020-21 recipient of the F. Marian Bishop Leadership Award from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Foundation.

Duke Family Medicine Center will soon welcome new providers to the clinic. Sara Mazzarelli, MHS, PA-C, and Greg Sawin, M.D., MPH, have been caring for patients at Duke Family Medicine North Duke Street alongside Medical Director Brian Halstater M.D.

Melissa Nicole Burnside, M.D., MHS, joins the department as a National Clinician Scholar. She earned a B.A. in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University in 2007, an MHS in Environmental Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2008, and an M.D., from The Ohio State University College of Medicine in 2016.

Brian Antono, M.D., MPH, earned his M.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine in 2016, and his Master of Public Health from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health in 2015.

The Department of Family Medicine & Community Health was awarded a $750,000 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Rural Residency Planning and Development Program to support the creation of a new Rural Track in the Family Medicine Residency. Greg Sawin, M.D., MPH, vice chair for education and faculty development, will serve as the PI for this award over the next three years.

For the first time in about 20 years, Duke family medicine residents have an inpatient presence at a Duke Health hospital.

Jeffrey C. Eschbach, M.D., joined the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health in 2019 as an adjunct faculty member, hospitalist and director of the Family Medicine Inpatient Service at Duke Regional Hospital.

Welcome Andrada Delia Neacsiu, Ph.D., M.S., as a behaviorist working with the Duke Family Medicine Residency Program. Neacsiu earned a doctorate from University of Washington in 2012, and a Master of Science from University of Washington in 2008.