Dr. Sarah Ro is the medical director of UNC Physicians Network Weight Management Program. As a primary care physician, she identified serious gaps in obesity care everywhere. In 2016, with a deep desire to improve the health of her many patients struggling with severe obesity, Dr. Ro began treating obesity directly using endocrine guidelines at the time (AACE Practice Guidelines on Obesity, 2016). In 2019, Dr. Ro was selected as a UNC IHQI Scholar to pilot a community-based weight management service that reduced financial and geographic barriers. This program increased access to evidence-based comprehensive obesity care for many patients. In 2023, Dr. Ro and her team won the UNC Medical Center Quality and Safety Award. In 2024, this patient centered community-based weight management program has expanded to 13 primary care clinics in 8 NC counties, and they just launched a Service Line to meet the huge demand.
Dr. Ro credits UNC Health’s deeply engrained culture of quality improvement in the success of this program. It all began with an idea by a PCP and the infrastructure was there to help develop, implement, and expand the program that has brought so much hope and healing to so many patients in all the communities they serve.
