Kim Baird, RN, MSN, FNP Director and FNP Care Provider Woodbine Family Care Center, Woodbine, GA

What population do you serve?

While my husband was finishing dental school we began to look at the list of available areas considered HPSA 1 -areas which would allow him to work off his 4 year National Health Service scholarship. At the time my father was a consulting engineer for a firm that did sewer work for small towns in Georgia. He was involved in our search and when he found out that Woodbine was on the list, he highly recommended we visit. He also alerted some key players in Woodbine of the possibility of his son-in-law coming to their community as a dentist. After seeing the small coastal town we couldn't resist. There was a Federal dental clinic already waiting for us. The year my husband graduated was the first year NHSC allowed dentists to exercise the private practice option so we bought the clinic from the Federal government in 1982. We began to enjoy the peace and solitude of rural life in a town of around 1200 people. I was able to open my practice after graduating from NP school in 1994. The demographics of this rural underserved community remind me of a microcosm of an inner city. Due to the nearby paper industry and Union Carbide plant, many blue collar workers have enjoyed decades of good jobs with excellent pay and benefits. In the late 70's groundbreaking took place for Kings Bay Naval Submarine base and forever changed the entire county with mostly positive growth (mainly in the south end of the county leaving Woodbine extremely rural). Woodbine did benefit from federal impact funds and was able to build a new elementary school however it experienced no population growth.