To the Editor:

Today, as in times past, fewer medical students choose primary care specialties like family medicine. Documented reports show medical students select other specialties more often than family medicine.

The recent loss of Dr. Charles O. Boyette, who devoted more than 50 years to providing medical care to the residents of eastern Beaufort and Hyde counties, represents a dying breed of physicians noted as country doctors. The state of North Carolina has lost another doctor who sought to champion the health care needs of patients living in rural, medically underserved areas of the state.

Dr. Boyette’s commitment to his patients and the town of Belhaven are noteworthy. His most recent appeal to ensure a level of health services that included a 24-hour, seven-days-per-week medical service addresses his commitment to representing the health care needs of North Carolinians living in rural or urban poor communities.

The limitations associated with recent losses in Medicaid expansion funding made it difficult for health care administrators around the state to sustain existing health care operations and to create new, viable business models to ensure care for all North Carolinians, including the most vulnerable patients. Federal Medicaid funds help health care systems to care for all patients, including the indigent.

Thanks to physicians, like the late Dr. Boyette, and health administrators working together with governmental leaders, new ways to ensure cost-effective health care alternatives are under way.

Thank you, Dr. Boyette, for your commitment to health care.

 

E. Ramona Brown
Knightdale
Former Daily News reporter