Holistic Primary Care would like to congratulate R.W. “Chip” Watkins, MD, MPH, on his recent inauguration as President of the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians. Dr. Watkins, a strong advocate of functional medicine & other holistic approaches, practices in Greensboro, NC.

Dr. Watkins has been at the forefront of the holistic medicine movement for decades. He runs a thriving integrative primary care practice in Greensboro, specializing in metabolic disorders and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis imbalances. He often lectures on this and other functional medicine topics.

In addition to his practice, Dr. Watkins serves as medical director of Sanesco (www.sanesco.net), an Asheville-based company focused on functional testing and targeted supplementation. Previously, he was medical director of Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratories (now Genova Diagnostics, www.genovadiagnostics.com) in its early days.

Dr. Watkins is among the first holistically-minded physicians to assume a leadership position of a mainstream state-level primary care organization. His election as NCAFP’s president is indicative of the very promising convergence now occurring between conventional family medicine and holistic/integrative care.

North Carolina is emerging as an important locus of integrative medicine. The state is home to Duke’s Integrative Medicine (www.dukeintegrativemedicine.org) center in Durham, the new David H. Murdock Research Institute (www.dhmri.org) in Kannapolis, Gaia Herbs (www.gaiaherbs.com), and a growing number of holistic MDs, nurses, naturopaths, TCM practitioners, chiropractors and other integrative practitioners.

Congratulations Chip, and thank you NCAFP!