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Doctors from Charlotte and Shelby have been named family physicians of the year for 2012 by the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians.
They are Dr. Ophelia Garmon-Brown, a Charlotte family physician who also received the Observer’s Woman of the Year award in 2010, and the late Dr. Robert “Bobby” Jones Jr. of Shelby.
The announcement was made during the group’s annual meeting in Asheville last month.
Garmon-Brown “has never forgotten her roots of growing up in a Detroit housing project,” said Dr. Brian Forrest, chairman of the state academy board. “And now, at least one day a week, you will find her at a free clinic she co-founded more than a decade ago. … Every summer she serves patients in other countries from Kenya to Guyana to Jamaica to South Africa.”
In addition to caring for patients, Garmon-Brown also serves in administrative positions at Presbyterian Healthcare and its parent, Novant Health. In 2007, she became an ordained minister after receiving a master’s of divinity degree from the Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education.
Jones – who died in August, 15 months after being diagnosed with cancer – was recognized posthumously for his 30-year medical career in Cleveland County.
In other business at the annual meeting, Dr. Rhett Brown, a family physician with Novant Medical Group’s Presbyterian Family Medicine Midtown in Charlotte, was installed as secretary/treasurer of the state academy.
