North Carolina AHEC Program
summer 2012 newsletter | home
Southern Regional AHEC Residents Graduate in June
Each year, Southern Regional AHEC employees say goodbye to third-year residents as they embark on their medical career and extend the AHEC mission of increasing the number and diversity of family medicine physicians in the state and region.
On June 29, 2012, five physicians are scheduled to graduate from the Duke/Southern Regional AHEC Family Medicine Residency Program. They are the program’s 32nd graduating class to earn board certification in the specialty of family medicine. 
We always like to know where their new-found experience will take them. These are the current plans of the 2012 Duke/SR-AHEC Family Medicine residents (from left to right in photo right):
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Jason Gosnell, MD, plans to open an outpatient family practice in Seneca, SC;
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Edwin Houng, MD, will, fortunately, be staying with AHEC a little longer. He was among three Southern Regional AHEC family physicians awarded a Faculty Development Fellowship;
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Jedlyn Pierrilus, MD, will be completing her master’s of public health in Baltimore, MD, and plans to work in the health policy sector with the aim of improving health care standards for the unrepresented and neglected;
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Chief Resident Bob Alcott, DO, will practice sports medicine through a fellowship at Cabarrus Family Medicine in Concord, NC; and
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Shervon Pierre, MD, is looking for an opportunity to provide health care to underserved populations.
Pharmacy residents Dawn Battise and Johanne Bennett will receive their diplomas alongside the Family Medicine graduates on June 29. Battise and Bennett (photo below, left to right) have completed special research projects to complete the requirements of their residency. 
Battise’s project was to survey new pharmacists on including motivational interviewing into pharmacy curricula. Bennett’s project studied the effect of a transition of care clinic interdisciplinary intervention on the quality of heart failure transition of care.
While Southern Regional AHEC says goodbye to one set of students, they simultaneously welcome new interns who are eager to begin their training. Class of 2015: Amanda Saunders, DO; James Lester, DO; John Novales, MD; Aaron Pascual, MD; Alexander Gelou, MD; Umer Ahmed, MD; Surinder (Sam) Bahia, MD; and joining the Class of 2014: Ben Lamberston, DO.