|
Phone: (276) 762-0770 Thomas Roatsey, D.O. is a board certified family physician with added qualifications in Occupational Medicine. He practices at the William A. Davis Clinic near St. Paul, Virginia. The William A. Davis Clinic is part of Stone Mountain Health Services, a network of federally supported clinics that create access to care for people who live in medically underserved areas. Two nurse practitioners, Carol Looney and Teresa Roatsey, work with Dr. Roatsey at the Davis Clinic. Born on November 2, 1955 in Bluefield, West Virginia, Dr. Roatsey was raised in Gary, a small industrial town not far from Bluefield. He married Teresa Roatsey in 1982 and the family includes three grown children – Brian, Brandy, and Blake. As indicated above, Teresa Roatsey is a family nurse practitioner who works side-by-side with her husband at the Davis Clinic. After graduating from high school, Dr. Roatsey worked 11 years as a welder in a coal preparation plant located in his home town. From 1984 to 1987, he took pre-medicine and engineering courses at three local colleges – Southwest Virginia Community College (Richlands), Beckley College (Beckley, West Virginia), and Bluefield State College (Bluefield, West Virginia). Talking a non-traditional route, Dr. Roatsey studied simultaneously with Bluefield State College and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (Lewisburg). He received a Regent Bachelor of Arts degree from Bluefield State in 1991 and a Doctor of Osteopathy degree from WVSOM in 1992. Dr. Roatsey did a rotating internship at Millcreek Community Hospital from July 1992 to June 1993 and spent six months as a Family Medicine resident at Charleston Medical Center in Charleston West Virginia. In January 1994, he transferred to the Family Medicine residency at Millcreek Community Hospital in Erie Pennsylvania and finished training there in July 1995. Early in his career, Dr. Roatsey worked as an emergency room physician at three hospitals - Millcreek Community Hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania (1994-95), Corry Memorial Hospital in Corry, Pennsylvania (1994-1995), and the Plateau Medical Center in Oak Hill, West Virginia (1995-1996). In 1996, Dr. Roatsey left the emergency room for the full-time practice of Family Medicine. He worked at the Oakwood Medical Plaza in Beckley, West Virginia for one year, then with Heritage Medical Associates in Beckley for two years. In 1999, Dr. Roatsey moved to Lebanon, Virginia, where he filled a number of roles at the Russell County Medical Center, being a family physician, an occupational medicine physician, an emergency room physician, the hospital medical review officer, and the head of employee health. He has been with Stone Mountain Health Services since January 2005.
Dr. Roatsey sees between 20 and 25 patients a day in the office. He does not have a hospital practice. About 20% of Dr. Roatsey’s patients are infants, children, or adolescents, about 50% are adults under the age of 65 and about 30% are older adults. The Clinic is a true family practice in the sense that entire families utilize its services, but the patient population also includes a great many people with chronic illnesses. Because it is a community health center, the Davis Clinic offers services on a sliding scale of charges. By source of pay, the patient population includes about 40% with Medicaid or Medicare coverage, 30% with commercial insurance, and about 30% with no insurance coverage. Residents who train with Dr. Roatsey can expect an excellent outpatient experience where they can utilize basic medical skills for the aggressive treatment of disease without undue reliance on technology. Most residents will be shocked by the range of pathologies in the patient base. Many Davis patients have serious illnesses and often postpone treatment until they are “bad-off.” Because patients do not have insurance and often resist expensive diagnostics and hospital admission, residents at the Davis Clinic will learn to attend closely to what patients say and analyze what is going on in the lives of their patients. As a part of the Stone Mountain Health Services network, the Davis Clinic is also a Veterans Administration (VA) clinic. Residents will notice that illnesses among veterans are often exacerbated by issues connected to their military service, their subsequent occupation, and other problems in their daily lives. Veterans tend to have more medical, pharmaceutical, and long term care needs that the general population. Dr. Roatsey is especially interested in occupational medicine, certified medical review, and drug and alcohol screening and treatment. His hobbies include hunting, fishing, golf, woodworking, and traveling. The Davis Clinic is located near a landmark known as “Hanging Rock” between the communities of Dante and St. Paul in Russell County, Virginia. Dante has a population of around 700. About 825 people live in St. Paul. The borders of St. Paul fade into those of an unincorporated community called Castlewood. About 6,000 people live in the Dante/St. Paul/Castlewood area. Although there are some local hostelries, most residents prefer to stay in Abingdon or Norton, larger communities that are 30-35 minutes from the Davis Clinic. GMEC should have no trouble finding a furnished house or apartment, or room in a good hotel or bed ‘n’ breakfast for residents who do rotations with Dr. Roatsey. The western part of Russell County lies among coal-bearing ridges on the Appalachian Plateau. The landscape has been carved by a myriad of small streams into a network of forested hills and deep hollows. Originally, the rugged terrain isolated the population into a series of small, close-knit communities, but natural boundaries have been breached by modern highways and communication systems. Major sectors of the economy in Russell County are educational, health and social services (20%), manufacturing (18%), wholesale and retail trade (13.7%), forestry, mining, agriculture, fishing and hunting (10%), and construction (8%). The four lanes of U.S. Highway 58A intersect in St. Paul with two lanes of Highway 63, which heads north to Dante. Local residents are served by a number of restaurants, groceries, banks, churches, discount and specialty stores. For fine dining, live theater, cinema, and serious shopping, most residents drive to historic Abingdon, about 35 minutes to the east. Hikers, bikers, swimmers, boaters, and picnickers can use local facilities at Guest River Gorge, Falls of the Little Stony, Hanging Rock Trail, the Devil’s Bathtub, and the Clinch River. For more information about the local area, see the county/city profiles for Russell, Wise, and Dickenson Counties.
|
Thomas Roatsey, D.O.
The William A. Davis Clinic is open on Tuesdays from 8:45 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and from 8:45 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Residents who train at the Davis Clinic will work from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. The clinic includes four exam rooms, lab, and simple x-ray equipment. Stone Mountain Health Services has a Pharmacy Connect program to get donated medicines for patients from pharmaceutical manufacturers. Dr. Roatsey does minor surgical procedures, joint injections, trigger point injections, and some osteopathic manipulation with his patients.