UO Magazine > Piedmont Triad Region: Greensboro, NC

The Triangle area may soak up the headlines coming out of North Carolina, but that wasn’t a consideration with Tony Hampton, MD.

Instead, the Cincinnati native graduated from the medical school at the University of Kentucky, looking for a good spot to do his neonatal residency. So he put a pin on the map where his mother-in-law lived near Lake Norman in North Carolina, made a four-hour circle around it and applied to every place on the

radar screen. He landed in Winston-Salem, one of the anchors, along with Greensboro and High Point, which make up the Piedmont Triad area in the northern section of the state.

Bordered and connected by Interstates 40, 85, 73, & 74, the Triad is home to roughly 1.5 million people, nine secondary cities, 12 counties, and 11 colleges and universities. Agriculturally speaking, tobacco is still king, but most Americans also recognize the region as a hub

for textiles and furniture design. The interior trends introduced at the annual spring market show in High Point routinely capture international attention. Other fashion-related names like Phillips-Van Heusen, Ralph Lauren, and the Brisco Apparel Company have begun moving in to capitalize on the trend. And in the last few decades, the Triad has also given the Triangle’s Raleigh/ Durham/Chapel Hill some stiff competition for high tech industries as well. Dell came on board with a computer assembly plant at the turn of the millennium, with firms like TriQuint Semiconductors hot on its heels. TriQuint has

said it will invest approximately $1.8 million over a four-year period and hire 25 employees with the average wage being in the $85,000-$100,000 range.

Overall, more than 80 manufacturers and distributors have announced or expanded their Piedmont Triad addresses since 2004. That includes Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which opened its doors in May 2006 and has since produced the first lab-grown organ, a bladder, to be implanted into a human. Researchers there are also harvesting stem cells from the amniotic fluid of pregnant women to study ways to form the mature cells that make up nerve, muscle, bone, and other tissue.

It obviously takes teamwork to coordinate such a draw, with organizations such as the Piedmont Triad Partnership and the Piedmont Triad Council of Governments pulling together on a volunteer basis to work in harmony. When it comes to telecommunications, the various cities and counties in the area offer similar cable TV rates, they share training for county emergency medical services staffs, and most coordinate programs such as the Area Agency on Aging. The television station news departments address the Triad, with advertising aimed at all three cities.

“The cities realize that there are tremendous benefits in being viewed as a larger area,” says Linda Roney, the vice president of business and market development for High Point Regional Health Systems in High Point. “Together, we have hockey, baseball, coliseums, a Shakespeare Festival. Individually, it’s not so hot. By working together to not duplicate services, we have really become stronger.”

The family room

Hampton certainly doesn’t regret his choice. “Winston Salem is probably one of the family friendliest areas that I have lived in,” he says. He finds plenty to do with his 6-year-old, 4-year-old, and 15-month-old children, with the Asheboro Zoo a few miles south among their favorites. “We went to the zoo back in Cincinnati this summer and, I mean, I love it but there’s so much crammed together. Here you walk a lot because all the animals are on wide open ranges.”

The family is just three hours from a beach on the Atlantic Ocean or two hours from the Appalachian Mountains, which they hit on a regular basis. Or they can stay right in town and spend the day at SciWorks environmental center and park. His daughter takes ballet lessons while another child gets ready to start karate. “If you have a young family, it’s a great place to live,” Hampton says.

That word has quickly spread throughout the medical community. It’s a rare day when Barbara Wolfe, the director of corporate development at Randolph Hospital in Asheboro, can’t introduce a job candidate to someone else trained in that doctor’s home town. “Even if it’s California,” she laughs. “The comment we hear most when doctors visit us is ‘Is there anybody from here?’

“We make a point to recruit from all over the country because we believe that it’s very important when physicians consult that they approach things not all from the exact same school of thought.” And that’s good news to a pool of candidates afraid they’ll continuously lose out to graduates from Wake Forest, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina, all top-notch programs located in the state.

Alethea McCullough, the director of physician recruitment for Forsyth Medical Center, sees her share of doctors moving from the north to North Carolina to escape the cold winters, but lately she’s also see a stream of candidates from the West and Florida, where they want to escape the high cost of medical malpractice insurance.

That may be why they come, but they stay because of perks like the school systems and cultural opportunities.

“Typically, physicians are surprised by how big the town is,” says Wolfe. “They hear our city zip code is 50,000 (population) and they think of something really small. When they get here, they see we have a mall, choices in where to eat—they are usually fairly surprised.” Just expect the iced tea you order in those restaurants to be served very sweet—this is the South, after all. That’s the only warning Wolfe can think of about the area.

By blending the cities, a more diverse array of arts can be supported. Triad residents enjoy the Winston-Salem Symphony, Greensboro Ballet, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, and community theaters.

Three-day weekends are cherished in the Piedmont Triad, with folks anxious for a chance at some hiking in good weather, skiing in the winter, or even a weekender in Charlotte (about 75 minutes straight down the interstate) to catch a Carolina Panthers NFL game. And golfing in the area is tremendous, insiders say.

Chris Spongberg, MD, a hospitalist with WFUBMC, likes to spend his off hours boating and jet skiing at Lake Norman, or visiting the wineries in the area. He is often in Raleigh, and once dated a woman who lived in Charlotte. In other words, folks who live in the Triad aren’t limited to the Triad’s boundaries by a long shot.

These diverse activities as well as great weather are drawing a senior population these days as well. “We consider ourselves the new Florida,” Roney says.

On the flip side, the activity and weather also draw an indigent population. The rate of people living in poverty is growing at a rate of 10 percent nationally, while North Carolina as a state is registering 15 percent increases. Thanks to the tobacco, cotton, and peach crops, health systems are also seeing a fair number of undocumented patients, too.

The hospitals do their best to serve them all. Forsyth is seeing increased numbers of patients in general, according to McCullough. “That trend also represents our biggest challenge—how to best serve the growing demand in our communities and neighborhoods. Part of that trend includes providing health care to more uninsured patients.”

Southern hospitality

“We have a lot of recruits who say the thing that swayed them on coming here was spending time in this community on their own, and how nice people were,” says Wolfe. “We encourage candidates to go to the Wal-Mart and stop and ask somebody what they think of the hospital or practice the doctor is interviewing with.” She’s that confident the answer from someone with no vested interest will be positive.