RANDOLPH, Vt. — Gifford Health Care is pleased to welcome John King, MD, MPH, an experienced family physician and medical educator who will care for patients at Gifford while helping lead a new effort to train family physicians in rural Vermont.
King is the program director of the Maple Mountain Family Medicine Residency, a new residency program that will train family physicians in the Randolph and Morrisville communities. As part of that work, King will practice at both Gifford and Lamoille Health Partners.
A board-certified family physician with added qualifications in sports medicine and geriatrics, King enjoys caring for patients across the lifespan.
“I really like to take care of the whole family and generations,” King said. “Family medicine gives you the opportunity to take care of people of all ages, from birth through the end of their life.”
King earned his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and completed his family medicine residency at Duke University. He later earned a Master of Public Health in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been a professor of family medicine at the University of Vermont since 2013 and previously spent a decade directing UVM’s Family Medicine Residency Program.
His career has combined patient care with a longstanding commitment to training physicians. King previously helped develop and served as founding director of the UVM Health Network-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital Family Medicine Residency in Plattsburgh, New York. His work in medical education has also included curriculum development, mentoring, quality improvement, continuing medical and interprofessional education, and teaching medical students and residents.
That experience now brings him to Maple Mountain.
The residency is designed to train family physicians within Vermont’s smaller communities, giving residents experience practicing in rural health centers and hospitals while developing relationships with the people and organizations that make up those communities.
King said training family doctors where they are most needed can play an important role in strengthening Vermont’s rural physician workforce.
“Physicians, especially in family medicine, tend to stay where they train,” King said. “You get to know the doctors you work with, the specialists, pharmacists, nurses and your community health team. By training physicians in these communities, we’re hoping to make it easier for those communities to recruit and retain doctors.”
King’s resume reflects a longstanding focus on rural medical education. He began developing the Maple Mountain program with a consortium of federally qualified health centers and critical access hospitals across Vermont, with the goal of bringing residency education into smaller communities that need broadly trained family physicians.
For King, practicing alongside the residents is an important part of that work. His approach to medicine emphasizes relationships and shared decision-making, giving patients the best available medical information while recognizing that each person ultimately makes decisions based on their own circumstances and priorities.
“I think it’s really important that we bring the best evidence that we have to the patient,” King said. “But it’s up to the patient to decide what they want to do. I’m a proponent of shared decision-making.”
King also sees technology, including artificial intelligence, changing the way physicians practice medicine and creating more opportunities for clinicians to focus on their relationships with patients.
“The personal connection, the relationship and the trust are going to be really important components of care,” he said.
King’s interest in sports medicine grew early in his career while practicing near a local high school and providing coverage for athletic events. His interest in geriatrics similarly developed through years of caring for older adults and nursing home patients. He has maintained added qualifications in geriatric medicine since 1994 and sports medicine since 1999.
Outside of medicine, King lives in Waterbury with his wife and enjoys Vermont’s outdoors. An avid cyclist and skier, he describes his interests as “anything that rides on two wheels or slides on the snow.” He and his wife also have two dogs.
For more information about Gifford Health Care, please visit www.giffordhealthcare.org
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About Gifford Health Care
Gifford Health Care is a community hospital in Randolph, Vt., with family health centers in Berlin, Bethel, Chelsea, Randolph, and Rochester, and specialty services throughout central Vermont. A Federally Qualified Health Center and a Top 100 Critical Access Hospital in the country, Gifford has earned both a 5-star Overall Hospital Quality Rating and a 5-star Patient Survey Rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — the highest recognition possible in both categories. Gifford is a full-service hospital with a 24-hour emergency department and inpatient unit, many surgical services, daycare, an adult day program, and a 30-bed nursing home. The Birthing Center, established in 1977, was the first in Vermont to offer an alternative to traditional hospital-based deliveries and remains a leader in midwifery and family-centered care. As a community health center and medical home, Gifford’s mission is to improve and manage the health of the people we serve by providing and assuring access to affordable, high-quality health care, and by promoting the health and well-being of everyone in our service area.
About Maple Mountain Vermont
Maple Mountain Vermont’s mission is to train skilled family physicians to practice in rural Vermont, delivering comprehensive, inclusive and collaborative health care to underserved areas. The Family Medicine Residency Program offers rural training through two community sites in Randolph and Morrisville, in partnership with Gifford Health Care and Lamoille Health Partners. Medical students interested in Maple Mountain Vermont can learn more about the program and application process at maplemountainvt.org.
Federal Funding Acknowledgment
Maple Mountain Vermont is supported by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $195,053,740.44 with 100 percent funded by CMS/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CMS/HHS, or the U.S. Government.
State of Vermont Funding Acknowledgment
Maple Mountain Vermont is supported by the Vermont Agency of Human Services and the Department of Vermont Health Access. For more information or to learn more about Vermont’s Rural Health Transformation program, visit https://healthcarereform.vermont.gov/hr1rural-health-transformation-fund
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