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C-Health, P.C. P. O. Box 2377 Lebanon , Virginia 24266 Phone: (276) 889-3700
Ann Townsend, M.D. is a board-certified family physician who practices in association with two family physicians, three family nurse practitioners, and a physician assistant at C-Health in Lebanon, Virginia . Her partners are Brian Easton, M.D., Hughes Melton, M.D., Brenda Jessee, F.N.P., Rebecca Varney, F.N.P., Angela Harrison, F.N.P., and Rachel Gilmer, PA-C.
Born in Charlotte, North Carolina in April 1974, Dr. Townsend spent much of her childhood in Summerville , South Carolina . She married Kevin Townsend in 1995 and the couple resides in Spring City , a rural neighborhood in Russell County , Virginia . The Townsends are an active couple who appreciate outdoor activities in the mountain region - hiking, camping, and running regularly. They particularly enjoy the care and riding of their horses.
Dr. Townsend entered Duke University in Durham , North Carolina in 1992 and earned a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering in 1995. She worked for two years as an office assistant, moving from Orlando , Florida to Charleston , South Carolina to Waterford , Connecticut along with her husband, who was in the United States Navy. In 1997, she enrolled in Eastern Virginia Medical School , Norfolk , Virginia and earned a Medical Doctorate in 2001. Dr. Townsend completed a three year residency program at Portsmouth Family Medicine in Portsmouth , Virginia in 2005.
While in training at Portsmouth Family Medicine, Dr. Townsend served as coordinator for the domestic violence shelter, as treasurer of the residency program, and as a member of the Board of Directors for the Virginia Academy of Family Physicians. She volunteered her services for a homeless shelter clinic, a domestic violence shelter clinic, sports clinics, and Adolescents in Medicine, a mentoring program for middle and high school students interested in health careers.
Dr. Townsend moved to Russell County and started practicing Family Medicine with C-Health during the summer of 2004. Just as she arrived in the community, an internist closed his practice and Dr. Townsend “inherited” many of his patients. She estimates that 20% of her patients are children, 30% are adults, and 50% are older adults. Still, Dr. Townsend enjoys the full scope of Family Medicine.
The offices include ample exam rooms along with waived medical laboratories and microscopy. Specimens for non-waived tests are collected on the premises and sent to reference labs for processing, X-Rays and Ultrasounds are done on site. The doctors solicit pharmaceutical manufacturers for donated medicines on behalf of indigent patients. Procedures done on the premises include skin surgeries, stress testing, colposcopies, flexible sigmoidoscopies, endometrial biopsies, LEEP, cryosurgeries, and joint and soft tissue injections.
C-Health is a completely computerized practice, with electronic medical records, several Internet connections, and automated patient accounts. Office hours in the Lebanon clinics are 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Mondays, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Wednesdays, which allows for evening and weekend hours..
Dr. Townsend sees an average of 10 to 15 patients each day when on call at Russell County Medical Center , where she has full admitting privileges. She encounters between 20 and 25 patients a day in the outpatient clinic. C-Health physicians share after-hours and hospital call, being on duty about 25% of the time.
Medical residents who come to C-Health for rural rotations can anticipate doing lots of procedures and learning how to make good use of electronic medical records. They will also learn that patients in Southwest Virginia genuinely respect physicians. Taking care of patients who appreciate your work adds to the satisfaction of living in a pleasant place, and the mountains of Appalachia can be extraordinarily pleasant.
Dr. Townsend came to live and work in Lebanon because she has always wanted to do rural medicine. As a resident, she came for a rural rotation with a local physician and she attended two “Head for the Hills” resident retreats at Breaks Interstate Park . These experiences helped her choose to practice in Russell County .
Residents who train with Dr. Townsend and her colleagues at C-Health can be lodged in a furnished townhouse leased by GMEC and located in Lebanon .
Russell County once boasted the largest cattle ranches east of the Mississippi , and high mountain pastures in the valley of the Clinch River are a legacy of those bygone days. Pastures surrounding the Town of Lebanon fade into forests in the northern and western parts of the county, which stretch across the coal-bearing hills of the Cumberland Plateau . The population of Russell County is about 28,500. The population of Lebanon , which is the seat of government for the county, is 3,399.
Three highways - U.S. 19, Rte. 82, and Rte. 71 - converge in Lebanon and offer easy access to larger communities in the region. The town is less than 30 minutes from Interstate 81. Educational, health and social services (20.0%), manufacturing (17.8%), tobacco agriculture, forestry, coal mining, and construction (17.8%), and retail or wholesale trade (13.7%) form the largest sectors of the economy in Russell County .
Local residents are served by a number of restaurants, groceries, banks, churches, discount stores, and specialty shops. For fine dining, live theater, and serious shopping, most residents drive to historic Abingdon, about 30 minutes to the south. Outdoor enthusiasts can hike, bike, camp, picnic, fish, hunt, boat, and ride horses in a number of recreation areas within easy distance - Guest River Gorge, Falls of the Little Stony, Hanging Rock Trail, the Devil's Bathtub, the Clinch River, and the Virginia Creeper Trail. For more information about the community, please see our profile of Russell County .
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Ann Townsend, M.D. 
C-Health has practice locations in two Russell County towns – Lebanon and Honaker. Dr. Townsend practices in Lebanon , where the C-Health office is just down the road from the local acute care hospital, Russell County Medical Center . 
Russell County Medical Center is a 78-bed acute care facility in the town of Lebanon . Hospital services include emergency care, inpatient and outpatient care, intensive care, surgery and anesthesia, radiology, imaging, laboratory, nutrition, cardiopulmonary rehabilitation, physical therapy, pharmacy, and home health. Specialties represented on the medical staff include: Anesthesiology, Cardiology, Emergency Medicine, Family Practice, Internal Medicine, Nephrology, Occupational Medicine, Oncology/Hematology, Pathology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Pulmonology, Radiology, Surgery, and Urology.