Helping those in need
Lynchburg News and Advance
Thursday, November 4, 2004Almost every year since the founding of the Free Clinic of Central Virginia in 1987, Dr. James Wright has volunteered his medical skills. Wright helped link the Free Clinic to the Pharmacy Access Coalition and later Meds Help.
On Saturday, Wright will be honored by the Medical Society of Virginia Foundation for his volunteer work - one of only four physicians in the state tapped for the Salute to Service Award.
That’s not a surprise to those who know and work with Wright.
“There’s nobody in the state that deserves that award more than Jim Wright, ” said Dr. Thomas W. Eppes Jr. a Lynchburg physician specializing in family practice and past president of the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine.
Wright provides a twice-monthly diabetic clinic at the Free Clinic. “The people at the Free Clinic have diabetic care second to none,” said Eppes.
Wright says volunteering at the Free Clinic is something many doctors do because it gives them a chance “to practice the purest form of medicine.”
“You get to take care of sick people without the administrative overhead, without hassling with the insurance companies for reimbursement. I can just practice medicine.”
Tracy Baker, former president of the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine Alliance nominated Wright for the award. She says that Wright spends countless hours in volunteer work, “but he is an incredibly humble man.”
But, even though he’s uncomfortable with the recognition, said Baker, the award comes with a $500 gift to Meds Help.
“He won’t say ‘No’ to free money for Meds Help,” said Baker.
Wright’s medical career has always included some volunteer work, starting in 1979 when he was completing his residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, after medical school at University of Virginia.
Through news reports, he’d become aware of the horrific plight of the Cambodian refugees. He called the American Red Cross and asked if they needed doctors. Within a week, he’d left his job as chief resident in internal medicine in Galveston for Washington, D.C. A few days later he left for Bangkok, Thailand.
The needs were great, but he quickly learned, “under the surface, we’re all the same. A Cambodian refugee in a refugee camp in far eastern Thailand wants to feed his family. He wants to see his children do well. He wants to get ahead. Basically we’re all the same - that was an eye-opener for me.”
Wright’s first practice in his hometown of Lynchburg was focused on obesity management, but he closed it out in the 1990s. “I loved it - it was a good medical practice, and provided a service that wasn’t available here, and still isn’t.”
Today he’s added insurance medicine to his list of specialties - life insurance, not health insurance, he hastens to add. “It’s the assessment of life expectancy.”
Wright came onto the Free Clinic Board in 1993, and continued volunteering.
Executive Director Robert Barlow said, in a letter supporting Wright’s nomination for the MSVF award, Wright is “a person who truly cares about providing assistance to the indigent population. He is well-liked by his patients because he treats them with the greatest respect …”
By 1996, the board of the Community Prescription program developed by Interfaith Outreach Association began meeting with the Free Clinic board.
Pretty soon, said Wright, other “stakeholders” in the community began to participate and the Pharmacy Access Coalition of Central Virginia formed.
Ultimately a private non-profit corporation, Meds Help was founded with goals to develop a non-profit pharmacy as well as provide access to the major pharmaceutical companies indigent care programs.
More than 1,000 people were being served through the program.
“It was a rocky road for a couple of years,” said Wright. “We decided that the goals and the services were so similar to the Free Clinic, there was no sense in funding two agencies.”
In October, Meds Help was officially merged with the Free Clinic.
Eppes said that the community pharmacy Wright worked so hard to achieve has been a way of trying to control costs for those who don’t have insurance plans or the funds. To help them afford the expensive pharmaceuticals at a time when even the generic forms are costly.
“Diabetics are taking three or four medicines to control sugars - it keeps them alive and healthier, but doesn’t work if they can’t afford it,” said Eppes.
Wright’s work with Meds Help has been able to lead in a way that’s helped the community and the physicians, said Eppes.
“Jim never asked to be the star. He always did it in the background.”
Return to Newspaper Articles