Dr. Rodger Mattson doesn’t fit the stereotypical image most people probably have of a family medicine doctor. On the weekends, he likes to spend his time riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, with his long, gray ponytail streaming behind him and his wife, Beth, piloting a three-wheel trike at his side. Born and raised in San Francisco, he’s got a big-city free spirit with the heart of a small-town doctor.
Spend a while chatting with Mattson and you’ll soon learn that the doctor and his family don’t shy away from adventure. This Thanksgiving he and his wife will travel to Mozambique. They’ve lived in nearly every corner of the U.S., from Oregon to Texas to Pennsylvania and now North Carolina.
Among his latest adventures: coming out of retirement to embrace a new role as program director of Novant Health’s rural family medicine residency track. The program is slated to begin during summer 2024, bringing new doctors to the community of Burgaw, home of Novant Health Pender Medical Center, 25 miles north of Wilmington.
Sick? You've got our 24-hour guarantee.
A heart for community
The new rural family medicine residency track is a big project, years in the making, that received funding through a grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration in December 2021. Several months back, Mattson found a job listing online for the program director and it sparked his interest. Retired since 2021, he felt drawn to return to a field he loves.
“It seemed like it would be fun, and like a thing I’d like to do,” he said.
Like many things about him, the way Mattson’s medical career began is also a bit unexpected. At age 40, he felt driven to move on from a 17-year career as a Presbyterian pastor and start fresh. Medicine appealed to him because he saw it as a joining of scientific and analytical thinking with hands-on care and compassion for others.
He attended medical school at Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, near where he and his family lived at the time, and completed his residency in Portland, Oregon. After 10 years of medical school and residency, Mattson chose to focus on primary care.
“To me that seemed like a natural extension of what I’d been doing,” he said.
Mattson returned to Oklahoma to work as a family medicine physician. For nearly 20 years to follow, he cared for families in rural communities in Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania and Virginia. This included practicing family medicine in a clinic in the small town of Talihina, Oklahoma, for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, the third-largest American Indian Nation in the United States.
“There are two Dollar Generals and the closest grocery store is 45 miles away. Other than that, there was one stoplight and nothing else in town,” he said.
It’s a way of living that many today find hard to imagine, but it’s reality for the 46 million U.S. residents who live in rural regions. Practicing medicine in an isolated pocket, with limited resources, requires plenty of flexibility, creativity and resourcefulness. And as one who does plenty of thinking outside the box, Mattson found his fit.
Mattson knows a thing or two about designing a successful residency program and guiding new doctors through it because he’s done it before – in several places. Mattson accepted his first faculty role in a residency program in Lawton, Oklahoma, in 2010 and since then has directed numerous residency programs in Oklahoma, Virginia, Texas and Pennsylvania.
“When I got into teaching in 2010, I got to pull together the two things I really liked to do, which was teaching and taking care of patients,” he explained.
Dr. Janalynn Beste, family medicine residency chairwoman and residency director at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center, said this is why she’s delighted to have Mattson aboard.
“With his long previous experience in residency education and clinical care, he brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to set up the program for success,” she said. “He has so much to contribute to the training of future physicians.”
Most future physicians don’t end up in areas like Pender County — only 2% of residencies take place in rural communities, the Health Resources and Services Administration reports. That’s why programs like the rural family medicine residency track are so important: they work to put doctors where they’re badly needed.
Increasing access to care
Rural areas of North Carolina have a physician shortage, and as a result, many community members struggle to find healthcare nearby. Bringing in new medical residents is part of the solution.
Medical residents are doctors who have recently graduated from medical school and are now undertaking on-the-job training in a specialized field. All medical residents practice under close supervision of a senior doctor, known as an attending physician. Depending on a doctor’s area of focus, a residency takes between three and seven years. After that, they receive board certification and become a fully credentialed doctor.
Each year Mattson will use the National Resident Matching program, dubbed The Match, to find two new medical residents who are passionate about rural healthcare. These residents will complete a three-year program, spending their first year working at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington. In their second and third years, they’ll provide full outpatient family medicine services to patients at Black River Health Services in Burgaw and will also care for patients at the community hospital, Pender Medical Center, two facilities that stand side-by-side.
There’s reason to hope some may stick around. In 2022, 55% of the individuals who completed residency training from 2012 through 2021 were practicing medicine in the state where they did their residency training, the Association of American Medical Colleges reports. A residency allows qualified doctors to build a foundation then stay.
This is crucial, Mattson said, because the opportunity for families to establish and maintain a relationship with a family doctor is important in so many ways. Family doctors don’t just see patients when they are sick; they help families and children maintain wellness by continually assessing physical, mental, behavioral and cognitive benchmarks.
In his clinical practice, Mattson saw plenty of sore throats and rashes, but also helped families prioritize regular immunization schedules, diagnose neurodevelopmental disorders and manage substance abuse and addictions. When children and parents have an ongoing relationship with a doctor, it helps set them up for a lifetime of good health. With his new role, he’ll ensure that his legacy of caring for rural communities continues well beyond his (second) retirement.
“I really like working with residents,” he explained. “What I'm hoping to teach them is to be lifelong learners, because that's what medicine is all about.”
