Women to Watch: Health Care Finalists

Meet the Women to Watch award finalists in the Health Care category

Jennifer Buxton

Deputy Director of Pharmacy Services

Cape Fear Clinic Inc.

Jennifer Buxton started working at the charitable care provider Cape Fear Clinic in 2003 as a volunteer while still a pharmacy student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She later served as a board member for five years before resigning her seat to take a more hands-on approach. She left a job  managing New Hanover Regional Medical Center’s outpatient pharmacy to become the clinic’s deputy director of pharmacy services in 2011.

As the clinic’s first resident clinical pharmacist practitioner, Buxton revamped the nonprofit’s on-site pharmacy to help more patients. Dispensed prescriptions grew from about 4,000 in 2011 to more than 20,000 in 2013.

She also maintains a clinical practice in mental health, providing medication management to the provider’s patients, and serves as co-director of Cape Fear Clinic’s mental health program.

 

Claire Corbett

AMI and Stroke Programs Manager

New Hanover Regional Medical Center

Corbett helped start NHRMC’s ST Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) heart attack program in 2008. STEMI, a severe form of a heart attack in which the artery is blocked, requires quick intervention.

The hospital’s program focused on cutting down intervention time to help those patients have a better chance at recovery. Corbett developed the program from its infancy to now being recognized as one of the elite programs in the country, according to hospital officials. Last year, it received the American Heart Association’s Mission: Lifeline Gold Award, which went to only fifty hospitals nationwide.

Corbett, who currently co-chairs the NHRMC Cardiovascular Symposium, previously worked as a paramedic. Besides leading the STEMI program, she is working on accreditation for the stroke program. She also works closely with a program that develops regionalized care for patients experiencing cardiac emergencies.

 

Lindsey Hurd

Owner | Angel Food Lactation & Nutrition

Lindsey Hurd became interested in perinatal and pediatric nutrition while working on her master’s degree through Meredith College. She focused her career on infant nutrition and lactation to support moms and their babies.

A registered dietician, she opened her company in 2012 while working part-time in a pediatric practice providing nutrition counseling. She became a board-certified lactation consultant after training through the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute housed at UNC’s public health school.

Hurd also received a certificate of training in food allergy management, with a focus on infant sensitivities through lactation, and recently completed birth doula training.

She volunteers with the Port City Breastfeeding Project, the Tri-County Breastfeeding Coalition, and NHRMC’s Mother’s Milk Club.

 

Karen Isaacs

Medical Director | Wilmington Health Access for Teens (WHAT)

A family medicine physician, Karen Isaacs is medical director of WHAT, which provides health services to area teens at the nonprofit’s main facility and school-based centers.

After graduating from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and then Wake Forest School of Medicine, Isaacs did her residency in family medicine at New Hanover Regional. When she graduated from the residency program, Isaacs began working at WHAT in a position made possible through the group’s partnership with

SEAHEC that administers the hospital’s residency programs. Because of the partnership, she also spends time as a member of the teaching faculty and a health provider at Coastal Family Medicine Center.

She recently was approved to participate in the North Carolina Medical Society Foundation’s Community Practitioner Program, which helps practices recruit – and in WHAT’s case – retain primary care providers in medically-underserved areas.

 

Suzanne Wertman

President | North Carolina Affiliate of the American College of Nurse-Midwives

Suzanne Wertman focuses on access to quality care for women in the state, especially in the area of prenatal care.

She serves as president of the North Carolina Affiliate of the American College of Nurse-Midwives (NCACNM). A certified nurse-midwife herself who works for Planned Parenthood, Wertman has advocated for state legislation that would allow certified nurse-midwives to practice without physician supervision as a way to expand the services in North Carolina.

The group recently received the inaugural Exemplary Affiliate Award from the American College of Nurse-Midwives because of those advocacy efforts.

For more about the awards and other category finalists, click here.