6:00 a.m. today
By Kevin LaTorre
NCAFP Communications and Membership Manager
Dr. Cassidy-Vu is a family physician at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem. She also serves as medical director at the Stokes County Health Department, a faculty member at the Wake Forest University Family Medicine Residency, and as an At-Large Director on the NCAFP Board of Directors.
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After completing medical school at the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Cassidy-Vu came to the Old North State for Family Medicine residency after one recommendation: “We were told, ‘You have to check out North Carolina if you’re serious about Family Medicine.’” Combined with her interest in an OB-GYN fellowship, she wound up at Moses Cone Family Practice for residency in 2002. In 2005, she completed that OB-GYN fellowship there.
And though she and her family returned to Ohio after Dr. Cassidy-Vu completed that fellowship, North Carolina was still her long-term home. She interviewed for positions at Cone Health and at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine (WFUSOM) Department of Family and Community Medicine, but she eventually chose to work at WFUSOM. “It sounds cliched and cheesy, but the people there were very warm and welcoming,” Dr. Cassidy-Vu says.
That group included past NCAFP president Dr. Rich Lord, who was then serving as the WFUSOM head of maternal health. “As an OB fellow, I needed to work with him and learn from him,” Dr. Cassidy-Vu says. “He’s probably one of the smartest people I know.” Combined with a close-knit group of OB-focused family physicians, Dr. Cassidy-Vu practiced the full-scope health care she had wanted through the nearby community hospital.
Today, Dr. Cassidy-Vu teaches on the WFUSOM faculty after 18 years and several leadership roles there (including several years as residency program director during COVID-19). “That was something, being the PD during the pandemic,” Dr. Cassidy-Vu says. “But I loved the residents. I still love the residents, and I love working with them however I can.”
She credits Dr. Lord for assisting her development in this new area of her practice. While leading Dr. Cassidy-Vu in the Family and Community Medicine Department, Dr. Lord oversaw the United Health Centers where the WFUSOM physicians provided prenatal care. In addition, he connected her with the Stokes County Health Department and encouraged her to begin practicing prenatal care there as well.In 2013, Dr. Cassidy-Vu began working with the health department one day per week. “It was so much fun,” she says. “But it was also eye-opening to see the limited care we could provide there when they didn’t have physicians on staff. You have to have physicians on staff. They weren’t doing any substance use care, which was and is a huge need in Stokes County.”
When county leadership asked Dr. Cassidy-Vu to help with directing the department, she realized that she would need to serve there full time to bring the care the community needed. “I went to [Dr. Lord] and said, ‘I think I need to quit Wake and go to the health department full time,’” she says. “He responded by saying that I should stay on faculty, continue teaching, and continue helping at the residency clinic while I worked at the health department.”
With that flexibility, Dr. Cassidy-Vu took up key new changes in her practice and in the health department. She helped launch Stokes County’s first medically-assisted treatment (MAT) program for opioids called the Scope Program, complete with peer support specialists to help patients through all their challenges and concerns outside the clinic. On top of this, Dr. Cassidy-Vu made sure the health department still provides prenatal care and the rest of full-scope Family Medicine. “It’s really fun that we can do full scope,” she says. “It worked out great.”
But in addition to her emphasis on both prenatal care and MAT access, Dr. Cassidy-Vu also pursued nutritional health at the residency and in the community. In 2017, she realized that the WFUSOM Family Medicine Residency didn’t provide any nutritional education to residents. When she explained this to Dr. Lord, he again encouraged her to make the change. “He was super supportive,” Dr. Cassidy-Vu says. “He told me and a few others to find coursework that would teach us what we needed to know. I went to the University of Maryland for a year and a half to complete a certification for integrated health.” With that certificate, she helped lead a program called Cooking Matters that taught better nutrition to local pregnant women, combining child-care, cooking, and connection. “It was just so fun,” Dr. Cassidy-Vu recalls.
She credits the developments of her career to Family Medicine itself in the supportive environment where she has worked. “It’s so neat that in Family Medicine, you can go from OB/GYN to nutrition to substance use,” Dr. Cassidy-Vu says. “Where else can you do this?”
Like many NCAFP members, she encountered the NCAFP by attending the annual Winter Family Physicians Weekend. “I received the scholarship the Academy gives to interns to attend,” she says. When she returned to North Carolina after her time in Ohio, she remembered that experience and wanted to stay in touch with the NCAFP. “The enthusiasm was cool,” Dr. Cassidy-Vu says. “I knew this was a fun group to get involved with.”
Her involvement soon included teaching at NCAFP events, helping to lead the annual summer meetings in Myrtle Beach, and then serving on the Member Satisfaction Committee (today called the Practice Environment and Professional Development Committee). She has served on the NCAFP Board of Directors as an At-Large Director since 2022. “It’s amazing how time flies here,” she says.
If you are providing a unique service to your practice and community, please contact us at kevin@ncafp.com and let us know!
