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William Jenkins MD
Receives Clinical Excellence Award
 
12/04/2007
 

William Jenkins, M.D. was awarded the 2007 Maine Primary Care Association’s (MePCA) Clinical Excellence Award on November 15th at their annual banquet in S. Portland.

The MePCA Clinical Excellence Award is an annual award that is presented to a Maine primary care physician who exemplifies the best of primary care medicine for the underserved; reaches high standards of quality care; adopts innovations; promotes greater access; and demonstrates leadership to advance primary care for all.

After 20 years of service to the Millinocket region as a private practitioner, Dr. Jenkins joined Health Access Network (HAN) in November of 2005 because he felt a strong connection with the organization’s mission and wanted his patients to have access to health center benefits, such as sliding fee discounts and support services. 

Dr. Jenkins grew up in Bangor/Brewer, Maine, graduated from the University of Maine, served as an officer in the United States Army and later graduated from the George Washington University School of Medicine.  He completed a residency in Family Medicine at Brown University’s Pawtucket Memorial Hospital.  He has maintained competencies in emergency care through ACLS, PALS, and ATLS certification, as well as obtained advanced certification in geriatrics.  He was Maine Family Doctor of the year in 1999 and DEAPA Physician of the year in 2007. 

Dr. Jenkins went into primary care for the underserved.  Ability to pay was always a consideration in his private practice, and he saw all patients with the same respect, regardless of their situation.  He felt developing his practice into a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) was a fulfillment of his vision of what he would like to leave behind for his community.  This fall Dr. Jenkins completed a two week mission to Vietnam with a group called “Vets with a Mission” to care for the poor in a small village there.  He hopes to continue this type of work along with his practice in the future. 

Dr. Jenkins has two special medical interests and his passion and expertise in both areas have significantly benefited the community. 

One of these special interests is geriatrics.  He is the medical director for HAN’s rural outreach grant project focusing on healthy aging, the promotion of geriatric education, and systematic improvement to the care of the elderly patients.  Dr. Jenkins is unstinting of his time and dedication in his efforts to serve the homebound and elderly.  He has always done house calls and continues to go out with his nurse on a regular basis to see the infirm and homebound.  As part of HAN’s geriatric initiative, he is leading the development of standards and protocols to more formally and effectively include routine home care in HAN’s delivery system as an innovative solution to assuring health services to this particularly vulnerable population.  Dr. Jenkins provides 100% of the medical care and supervision for Katahdin Nursing Home in Millinocket.  He has told his colleagues the time he spends there is one of the most rewarding experiences he has had in medicine. 

His other passion is emergency medicine.  Dr. Jenkins is the physician leader on HAN’s emergency preparedness committee, and the driving force behind Katahdin area disaster preparation and pandemic flu plans, committing many personal hours to these initiatives.  He is the emergency room supervisor at MRH, supervising the physician assistants who work there.  He often teaches in the hospital and the community, working with police, fire and EMT on emergency preparedness.  His development of Millinocket’s rural care hospital emergency room utilizing the strengths of the PA providers there has enabled the hospital to meet or exceed several areas of critical care including acute MI, stroke and Pneumonia protocols.  Through his leadership, he has assured the care provided to each patient in this rural community meet national standards. 

To say Dr. Jenkins goes above and beyond the call of duty is an understatement.  Despite the fact that he is at an age where more physicians are retiring, Dr. Jenkins routinely works 16 hours per day.  Through MRH employs hospitalists for the in-patient care services, he still admits and cares for his patients who are in the hospital, as yet another example of his extraordinary commitment to his patients.  His peers reported seeing him resting in a chair next to a critically ill patient to see them through the night on many occasions. 

Dawn Cook, HAN CEO states “Dr. Jenkins is one of the hardest working and most humble physician I have ever worked with.  He demonstrates leadership without personal gain motives, is direct and fair to all he works with, stays abreast of new medical information, and makes his patients feel like they are his #1 priority at all times.”