Finding Home

Some people find a job and then find a place to live nearby, but husband and wife pediatrician team, Drs. David and Cathy Riopel, had a different approach.  On a very long trip up the eastern coastline – from Florida to Virginia - the Riopels first found the right place.  They both felt life change when they crossed the 17 mile bridge tunnel span connecting their future home to the rest of Virginia.  The ocean pounded Smith Island on one side. Striper fisherman fished around the nets on the bay side. Bald eagles flew overhead.  The bridge joined a highway surrounded by the vast green of winter wheat. The place felt right but would there be a need for pediatricians?  On the way home they called the local hospital.  They were connected with Eastern Shore Rural Health, a local community health center.  They had never heard of a community health center but instantly felt comfortable with the idea.  The mission to provide healthcare to a whole community was right.  Nineteen years later they still enjoy living, working and playing on the Eastern Shore.

Although Cathy was born in Texas and David in Boston, they met in Charlottesville, Virginia where their fathers were professors at the University of Virginia. Both tracked to medical school, but in different ways.  Cathy knew she wanted to work with children in Pediatrics because she had worked at summer camps and a children’s rehabilitation center but David took a bit longer to figure out his direction. David knew he wanted to be physician and help people, but having worked during school with a Family Practitioner, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to work exclusively with children. He completed a combined medicine/pediatrics residency but later decided to practice pediatrics.

The couple trained together at Louisiana State University where one of their work sites was Charity Hospital of New Orleans – the one that you may recall was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. At the time, the hospital provided healthcare for the underserved.  Cathy chose it because she knew the training would push her. “I was shy and quiet,” she said, “I needed to be in a place where I would be forced to engage. I wanted to train in a place where I would see a high volume and variety of patients.”   David says without hesitation that Charity provided great training for a rural practitioner because there the physician did almost everything.  In addition to the standard resident role, physicians drew blood and labs, performed many procedures, started their own IV’s and learned to “make do” with minimal equipment.  In addition, they were exposed to many different cultural and social backgrounds.

So after residency and a very long trip up the east coast with their 14 month old son in tow, the Riopels landed on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  After 19 years of both out-patient care at the Community Health Center and inpatient care at the local hospital, they are only surprised that more people don’t want to do this. More than ever, they believe in the community health center mission.  They love life in their rural coastal community surrounded by water and nature and are grateful for the opportunity to work together and to live and work in a close community.   Every day, at school, at the ball field, or at the store, they interact with their patients. Sometimes there is a consult but more often there is a hug and a special feeling of appreciation that keeps them going.

Eastern Shore Rural Health is comprised of five community health centers (CHC’s) from Cheriton’s Bayview CHC to Chincoteague CHC with Franktown, Olney and Atlantic in between.  NINETY PERCENT of children on the Eastern Shore are seen by these five community health centers.  The community consists of professional and agricultural workers with a large number of those who speak either Spanish or Haitian Creole.  There is also a large seasonal migrant population.

 Although their eldest son is now in college and their second son is in high school, the Riopels’ “typical” day once consisted of logistical issues with childcare, sporting events, and with rounds preceding their time in the community health center. They joked that they would often pass on the highway.   Unlike many other CHC”s,  in this community where a close arrangement with the hospital exists,  the CHC pediatricians also consult in the Emergency Room, care for inpatient pediatrics and nursery,  and attend all C-sections. This comprehensive care may be sometimes tiring but the Riopels consider it incredibly rewarding to have attended premature births and then see these at-risk children grow up.

 
David and Cathy are proud that their CHC provides accessible healthcare for ALL without turning people away.  They also enjoy proactive healthcare programs that offer support for teenage moms and breast feeding and allow nursing home visits.  They are thankful to Eastern Shore Rural Health System for the support that has enabled them to maintain an ideal work/life balance.  They consider themselves very fortunate to work in a CHC whose administrators are so dedicated to mission and community.  Their leaders have always been committed to pediatrics even though sometimes this has been financially challenging.

David says, “Being at a place for almost 20 years gets more and more rewarding – especially in a Community Health Center. You have great perspective into the community and really know your patients and families well. Sometimes a well-child visit is like catching up with an old friend.”

 “Like most people,” Cathy states, “I try not to dwell on my age but there is one particular patient that I see every year where I can’t resist a little nostalgia.  She was 1000 grams when she was born and now a healthy teenager and I look at her mother and tell her every year, “ I remember when we first held you and you fit in one hand.”  Surrounded by the water and embraced by the community of the Eastern Shore, the Riopels are home.