First Posted: 12/10/2012

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Dr. Joseph Bell, medical director at Pembroke Pediatrics, a division of Children’s Health of North Carolina, was selected by the Physician Assistant Education Association as the recipient of its 2012 Partnership Award. This award, presented at the association’s recent Annual Education Forum in Seattle, honors an individual or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to excellence in physician assistant education.

Bell has been a clinical preceptor for Duke University School of Medicine Physician Assistant Division students for 17 years, typically hosting one student per month.

He was nominated by three members of Duke’s faculty, Melinda Blazar, Nicholas Hudak, and April Stouder. In their nomination letter, Blazar, Hudak and Stouder said students are highly complimentary of Bell.

“He truly understands the PA role and utilizes providers to their full potential, often nurturing a new graduate along the way. Our students certainly benefit from this positive supervisory relationship in the office, and it provides them with a benchmark as they seek their first supervising physician after graduation.”

Bell received a five-year grant from the American Academy of Pediatrics Community Access to Child Health Program to promote health education in the Pembroke community.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, he has served as the clinical director at the Choctaw Nation Indian Hospital in Talihina, Okla. He also worked as a board-certified pediatrician at the Carl Albert Indian Hospital in Ada, Okla.

Bell founded Pembroke Pediatrics in 1998. Previously, he served as the medical director of Robeson Health Care Corporation and managing partner of Children’s Health of the Carolinas.