Feb. 27, 2025 | By Dan Grubb, Womack Army Medical Center
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — It's 3:30 p.m. on a Tuesday, and patients sign their names onto the roster at the CARE clinic of Cumberland County.
Meanwhile, Capt. Matthew Adair, a Womack Army Medical Center doctor, checks in from the other side of the clinic to look over vital records before calling patients in to be seen.
The CARE Clinic, a nonprofit organization established more than 30-years ago in Fayetteville, provides a haven for medical care to those who normally could not afford it. Funding is provided entirely by the generosity of donors, grants from foundations and annual fund-raising events to provide health services at no charge.
The facility hosts doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, dental assistants, and pharmacy techs who volunteer not out of obligation but out of a love and commitment to their profession. Womack Army Medical Center has long been included in the list of providers who bring their expertise to the table.
“This experience provides a sense of community and compassion for those from all walks of life,” said Lt. Col. Adriane Bell. Bell is Womack’s Program Director for the Residency. “It also exposes volunteer medical care providers to the challenges of caring for patients who may not return for follow-up or those who may not be able to see a specialist.”
Dr. David Kersbergen, Womack’s faculty coordinator for the volunteers points out that the clinic benefits the providers as well as the patients. “It's an opportunity for them to get to know their local community a little bit better. To appreciate what we have in our community versus other communities,” he said. “But it's also it's an opportunity, in my opinion, for them to get to practice pure medicine and minimalist medicine because they're practicing the very limited formulary with limited access to historical records.”
The mission is to provide free, quality healthcare to the low-income, uninsured adults of Cumberland and bordering counties. The clinic operates primarily on the aid of volunteers and aims to connect with the Fayetteville community through business partnerships, volunteer opportunities, and committee involvements.
“There are patients here that due to their difficulty with access to care, they come in with conditions that are more serious or ones that are perhaps not as well followed up on,” said Cpt. Adair. you know. “I have had some patients come in here pretty sick, sometimes needing procedures that should have been done a while ago, things that have festered.”
Adair adds that he can see some patients that need things done that normally he would not have the time to do in clinic. “The time that we have here with our patients is our own, we're not quite on the clock as much. And so, it means that we can kind of provide well rounded care to people that we don't know if they are going to be able to come back for their next appointment.”
“Our doctors are exposed to chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, secondary cardiac prevention, obesity as well as acute conditions upper respiratory infections, rashes, musculoskeletal complaints,” added Bell. “They also gain exposure working with other medical and dental residents in the Fayetteville community.”
For more info about the CARE clinic and its services, https://www.thecareclinic.org. For more about WAMC, https://womack.tricare.mil.
