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Phone: 276-597-7081 Dia Owens, M.D. is a board certified family physician who practices at the Thompson Family Health Center in Vansant, Virginia. The Thompson Center is part of Stone Mountain Health Services, a network of federally qualified health centers with eleven clinics in rural Southwest Virginia. The Stone Mountain system receives federal funds to create access for low-income patients through a sliding scale of service charges. The Vansant practice includes Dr. Owens and Mary Anne Collins, a family nurse practitioner. Vansant is home for Dr. Owens. She was born nearby in Richlands, Virginia in 1976 and grew up in Vansant, graduating from Grundy Senior High School in 1994. She went to East Tennessee State University (Johnson City, TN) in 1994, where she majored in Biology and graduated with a B.S. in 1998. Dr. Owens entered ETSU’s James H. Quillen College of Medicine (Johnson City, TN) in 1998 and her M.D. in 2002. She completed her Family Medicine residency at ETSU Family Physicians of Bristol (Tennessee) in 2005. Dr. Owens started practicing at Thompson Family Health Center in September 2005. Dr. Owens has been married to David Owens since 1994. They have three children, Ethan (b. 2001), Emma (b. 2003), and Evan (b. 2005.) Reading and spending time together are favorite activities for the Owens family. Office hours for Dr. Owens are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, 1:00 p. m. to 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays, and 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon on Fridays. The practice suite includes four exam rooms, a waived lab, a standard x-ray unit, and a procedure room. Procedures done in the office include skin tag removal, biopsies, and other minor skin surgeries. Patients with low incomes receive donated medicines through the Pharmacy Connect system. A mental health counselor is available to patients twice a week at the Thompson Center, and the Center creates access to medical and pharmaceutical services for local veterans through a special arrangement with the Veterans Administration facility in Johnson City, Tennessee. Dr. Owens sees 15-20 patients a day and the nurse practitioner sees another 10-12 patients a day. About 45% of the patients are younger adults (<60), 50% are older adults (60+), and about 5% are infants, children, or adolescents. Dr. Owens estimates that 60% of her patients are covered by Medicaid or Medicare, 10% are covered by private insurance companies, and 30% have no insurance coverage. She states proudly that the Thompson Center is a “community health available to every person, with or without insurance.” Dr. Owens makes home visits for end-stage cancer patients, patients who have suffered stroke, patients who have disabling lung diseases, and other patients receiving hospice services. The Thompson Family Health Center has high speed Internet service and direct access to the University of Virginia Health System. The UVA Office of Telemedicine enables Dr. Owens to conduct real-time consultations with sub-specialists at UVA. Telemedicine also creates local access to educational programs such as grand rounds, case conferences, and lectures.
Buchanan County stretches across the intricate hills and hollows of the Appalachian Plateau. The landscape has been carved by a myriad of small streams into complicated networks of steep, forested mountains and narrow glens or valleys. Though somewhat daunting to first-time visitors, the hills and hollows are home to thousands of warm and wonderful people. The landscape has encouraged the development of many small, close-knit communities for both native mountaineers and incoming residents. Major elements of the local economy are educational health and social services (24%), forestry, mining, hunting, fishing, and agriculture (16%), retail and wholesale trade (14%), transportation, warehousing, and utilities (8%), and construction (8%). Coal continues to play an important role in Buchanan County. The community mines 10 million tons of coal each year, about 34% of Virginia’s total output. Vansant is one of several communities strung like pearls along U.S. Highway 460, including Oakwood, Garden, Royal City, and Grundy. Were it not for signs at the boundaries of each place, it would be impossible to tell where one town ends and the next begins. The combined population of these places is around 6,000 and there are several shopping centers, cinema screens, restaurants, groceries, discount stores, specialty boutiques, motels, and other small businesses in the area. Breaks Interstate Park is on the Virginia/Kentucky border, offering opportunities for hiking, biking, horseback riding, swimming, boating, and fishing. The Rhododendron Room at the Park offers country cuisine in a spectacular setting above the grand canyon of the south. For more information about Vansant and the surrounding area, see our profile of Buchanan County.
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Dia Owens, M.D.
Dr. Owens does not maintain hospital privileges. However, the hospital nearest her office is Buchanan General, an acute care facility licensed for 134 beds with 95 beds in service. Services include emergency care, intensive care, acute, cardiac, cancer, surgical, and home health nursing services, physical therapy, radiology, pharmacy, nutrition, and outpatient care. Specialties on staff at Buchanan General are Cardiology, Family Medicine, General Surgery, Gynecology, Internal Medicine, Interventional Radiology, Pulmonary Medicine, Orthopedic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Pediatrics, Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Sleep Disorders, and Urology.
Residents who train with Dr. Owens may choose to stay at the Comfort Inn in Grundy or commute from Breaks Interstate Park, which is about 30 minutes from Vansant. GMEC will try to secure a furnished house or apartment for residents, but short-term rentals are hard to get in Buchanan County, especially since the Appalachian School of Law and the Appalachian School of Pharmacy have increased local demand for housing.