Trotta is a veteran himself. He
joined the Army “because they paid
for medical school,” he says. In
return, they asked for a seven-year
commitment. He stayed for 28. He’s
also an Afghanistan vet, serving there
for 14 months as theater surgeon.
He moved to Wilmington in
2008 after retiring from the Army
and went to work for Wilmington
Health as an infectious disease
specialist.
“After two years at Wilmington
Health, the VA recruiter actually came
to me and said would I consider
going over there because they were
going to build a bigger facility,” he
says. “So I knew this was coming,
but I worked over at the other build-ing
for a while.”
After taking the job, Trotta began
doing some recruiting himself, bring-ing
in cardiologist Bill Holt, urolo-gist
Greg Drake, and family medi-cine
specialists Belinda McPherson
and Thomas E. Marcinowski Jr. The
number of Patient Aligned Care
Teams — which include a primary
care provider, other caregivers, nurses
and administrative support — grew
from four to 10.
“We got some local talent in here,
which is really good to see,” Trotta
says. “I’ve got more than double the
number of primary care teams. I got a
cardiologist, dermatology, endocrinol-ogy,
infectious disease, urology, a full
lab, full radiology, a full pharmacy.
The more good care I can give a vet-eran
right here in Wilmington, rather
Optical technician Stephanie Skinner and Dr. Arthur Liberty
look at a wall of glasses in the eye clinic.
Wilmington-area veterans no longer have to travel to
Fayetteville for access to services like imaging.
than them getting in a car and having
to go to Fayetteville, that’s success to
me. And we’ve had a lot of success over the past five or six years.”
The compensation for VA doctors is getting more competitive
with the civilian world, Trotta says, but most who make the switch
take a pay cut. In theory, any gap is made up in quality-of-life ben-efits
like regular hours — the center is open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.,
Monday-Friday, and doctors are never on call. But it doesn’t quite
work out that way.
“If you come here on Saturday morning when this place is closed,
you’ll see several cars in the parking lot,” Trotta says. “Those are typi-cally
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my docs coming in to catch up
on their paperwork or do something
over here. So, Bill Holt’s in here
reading echocardiograms every week-end.
That’s the type of folk we want
to put here. Practice good medicine,
and have a little heart for veterans.”
Harriet Browning, the chief nurse,
personifies the latter quality.
“There is a certain honor in pro-viding
care to the veterans,” she says.
“I am not a veteran, but I am mar-ried
to a veteran. I view my work-ing
for the VA as my service to the
country, to serve those who served.”
Browning oversees telehealth
services for all of the Fayetteville VA
system, which includes Wilmington
and a small outpatient clinic in
Supply in Brunswick County.
Through remote access, patients can
receive care from clinical techni-cians
in Jacksonville or a doctor in
Richmond, Virginia.
“The physician who’s in
Richmond will see the patient who’s
in Brunswick County,” Browning
says. “We can look at the eyes and
ears and the throat and use a tongue
blade, and it’s really kind of neat
because it’s displayed on the screen.
On one of the screens the veteran
can actually see what the provider is
seeing on the other side, as well as
see the provider’s face. The ones that
have done it, they’re like, ‘That is so
cool, can I do that again?’ It really
increases the access for our veterans.”
That’s the bottom line at the
health center: access to quality care
for those who have served their
country.
“Give me a vet that walks in that door with any problem at all,
any day of the week, and it’s going to get at least attended to,” Trotta
says. “I’m very proud of where we’ve come. And for the guys that
come in here and sit in that chair and talk to me about complaints,
because I know them, I say, ‘Just remember Medical Center Drive.
Remember when you used to talk to me over there? OK, now really
take a look and tell me what you got now.’ Almost 100 percent of
the time they look at me and go, ‘You know what, you’re right.’ It’s a
lot better now.”