By james art 
“Life taught me the importance of listening and really hearing what people have to say. Kindness is paramount,” says Bonnie Jeffries Brown, this year’s recipient of the Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award.
The award honors Brown’s forty years as executive director of the New Hanover-Pender County Medical Society, from which she will retire at the end of 2023. She received the award Friday at the Greater Wilmington Business Journal’s annual Health Care Heroes Awards event at the Wilson Center . To see a list of other winners in the healthcare category, click here.
The purpose of the society, which represents hundreds of physicians in the Wilmington area, is threefold: to unite the physicians of New Hanover and Pender counties into one organization so that they may give the views of the profession in all scientific, legislative and public health matters. and effective socio-economic issues; to join with other county medical societies to form the NC Medical Society; and to form the American Medical Association with other state societies.
Of her tenure, Brown says, “My goal has been to help each society president be the best they can be and to support the board, membership and community in any way that is necessary and that my skill set allows.”
Community physicians have been responsible for hundreds of advances over the past forty years. A physician headed an endowed scholarship for pre-med students at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 1989. In another example, the society hosted a health fair on Independence Mall in 1994 and started an annual summer social and family day.
“By offering opportunities for doctors and their spouses to come together and really get to know each other, they can see that, specialties aside, they’re more alike than they are different,” she says, acknowledging the importance of transparency and communication, inclusiveness and collegiality.
The society celebrated its quincentenary in 2017, attracting the participation of eight other community agencies. Health hotlines were held, annual state-mandated pre-participation athletic screenings continued, annual giving to a deserving charity began, and in 2010 the society built a house with Habitat for Humanity. Brown had the honor of seeing the New Hanover County Health Department clinic named for former society president Frank Reynolds and hearing firsthand that a member had prevented suicide during a health hotline.
“They were great to watch,” says Brown.
The society established a section for retired physicians, and in 1988, after 121 years, the society began recognizing all past presidents with a plaque.
“Our physicians remain strong in their commitment to their professional organization,” says Brown.
Doctors are eager to serve their community in various capacities, speaking at schools and to the media and writing monthly educational news articles. Members serve on the Board of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Civil Service Commission and hold leadership roles in the NC Medical Society.
Brown’s career was rooted in her childhood interest in medicine when she aspired to be a medical missionary. She grew up in rural Wake County and is the oldest of four children.
“I loved him. We had a milk cow, sheep, chickens, dogs and pigs and a little goat that thought it was a dog and ran to meet us on the school bus every day,” she recalls. Her parents were her inspiration. Her father was a teacher, principal and ordained priest, and her mother worked as a medical technologist.
Brown received a degree in sociology with an emphasis in social work, psychology, and anthropology in 1964 from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
She held various positions leading to her position in the medical community. During her college summers, she was a counselor at Camp Easter in the Pines at Umstead State Park in Wake County through the NC Society for Crippled Children and Adults. Brown is a case worker for the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services and was a manufacturer’s representative for Topsox, a Charlotte-based company.
“It was clear that sales wasn’t my passion when I wasn’t excited, even though I was selling the most personalized college socks that any salesperson has ever sold in one order,” she says.
In 1963, she married Philip Michael “Mike” Brown. Ten years later, they moved their two biological sons, two foster sons, a Chihuahua and a Doberman to Wilmington when Mike was hired to teach and coach basketball at New Hanover High School. In 1973 and 1974, the couple raised five children.
Choosing to stay home to raise her children, Brown took a position with the Tri-County Medical Society as executive secretary in 1983, a part-time position that allowed her to work from home for the next 10 years. (After Brunswick County members requested their own charter, the organization became the Hanover-Pender County Medical Society.) Brown’s work moved into a full-time role that continued for the next thirty years, with the title changing to executive director within a few years.
In 1982, Governor Jim Hunt presented her with the New Hanover County Individual Human Service Award for volunteerism. In 2016, she received the John Huske Anderson Award from the NC Medical Society, which recognizes people outside the medical profession for contributions to the work of physicians and assistants.
Brown is quick to point out that the credit for what the organization has accomplished is not hers. “Our area is fortunate to have a good group of dedicated physicians. The sacrifices one has to make to even become an MD or a DO are enormous,” she says. “Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that the position would develop into a full-fledged career in association management. I have enjoyed working with hundreds of doctors. Many, along with their husbands, became dear friends.”
Brown said she was both humbled and honored by the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“My naturally strong nurturing instinct makes caring for people easy,” she says. “Whatever the future holds, I hope I can continue to learn, be a comfort and encouragement to those who may need me, and always, always, maintain an attitude of gratitude no matter what my situation.”