FORT COLLINS, COLO. – The Northern Colorado Medical Society has named its 2015 NCMS Physician of the Year, the late Patricia Powell, MD. This honor, the society’s highest, was presented at the NCMS Annual Meeting on Dec. 9, 2015, by colleague Mark Wallace, MD, MPH.

Dr. Powell was an accomplished family physician, respected leader and trusted friend. She passed away in August at age 69 after a brief battle with a rare and aggressive cancer. She served as a physician and the chief medical officer for Sunrise Community Health and is fondly remembered by colleagues for her dedication to the underserved.

She spent her early professional career teaching math, science and English in Malaysia as a Peace Corps volunteer, and then returned to the U.S. to become a computer programmer and eventually the vice president of a major IT corporation. She left a very successful career to pursue medicine and after medical school in Coral Gables, Fla., and residency in Greeley, Colo., headed to Bethel, Alaska, where she specialized in family medicine and high-risk operative obstetrics. She later returned to Greeley to join Sunrise where she helped the center grow from one clinic with 14 clinicians serving 11,000 people to 10 clinics with 55 clinicians serving more than 34,000 people each year.

Drawing from her extensive IT experience, Dr. Powell championed Sunrise’s transition to technology, leading their early-adopter efforts to transition from paper health records to electronic health records in 2004 and the effort to become a qualified patient-centered medical home. She mentored, taught and nurtured family medicine students and residents, many of whom provide care in northern Colorado, and she was a stalwart servant of community health center patients and the business of medicine.

A selection committee comprised of NCMS leaders chose Dr. Powell from among many worthy nominees. The society places a call each year for nominees who provide the community with compassionate and caring medical service in practice, education or research; enhance the quality of his or her community; and serve as a credible role model to others. Find out more about how to submit a nomination for the 2016 NCMS Physician of the Year at www.nocomedsoc.org.

The Northern Colorado Medical Society is the premier membership organization dedicated to uniting the physicians of northern Colorado through advocacy, education and member services. Formerly the Larimer County Medical Society, NCMS now includes physicians in both Larimer and Weld counties. Visit us online at www.nocomedsoc.org.

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