Filling the gap
Faith Family Medical and Lipscomb have partnered over the past two decades to bring affordable health care to the uninsured.
Long-time medical director, Parker Panovec (BS ’86), works with one of the clinic’s newest full-time employees, May 2025 biology graduate Valeria Ochoa (BS ’25), medical assistant.
By Janel Shoun-Smith
Posted 8.8.2025
Universities have always been uniquely positioned to fill gaps.
As our society continuously identifies gaps in life’s essential needs, universities are on the front lines of finding ways to fill those gaps. Asa Christ-centered university, Lipscomb is constantly looking for ways to act as the hands and feet of Jesus to fill those crucial gaps.
One of Lipscomb’s closest partners in this endeavor is Faith Family Medical Center, a Nashville nonprofit clinic created to serve the city’s working uninsured and under-insured.
Countless Lipscomb alumni and friends have been involved with Faith Family’s services since it was established 24 years ago, and today Lipscomb’s academic programs are actively partnering with the clinic to prepare health care practitioners of the future with firsthand experience in filling this gap in health care provision.
Mikayla Morrow (PharmD ’25) with Sarah Uroza, associate professor of pharmacy practice, in the Faith Family pharmacy storehouse.
More than 200,000 Middle Tennesseans have no insurance, says Phil Ellenburg (BS ’86), Faith Family’s current CEO and a former general counsel and vice president of alumni relations at Lipscomb. It was this population that Nashville orthopedic surgeon David Gaw, a longtime friend of Lipscomb, wanted to serve when he established Faith Family in 2001.
Among its early supporters were Cal Turner Jr., founder of Dollar General and a long-time Lipscomb supporter and member of the university’s advisory boards, and the late J.D. Elliott, founding president of the Memorial Foundation and former trustee for Lipscomb.
On the clinic’s first day, it had only a medical director and a nurse on staff and no patients arrived that day at its location at Murphy and 21st Ave., said Ellenburg. In 2025, the clinic now serves 3,200 patients in its new 17,000-square-foot headquarters, completed in 2020.
The organization provides a wellness facility, fresh grown produce from its urban garden and behavioral health services and partners with 150 health care providers for specialty services to supplement the seven medical professionals on the full-time staff.
The Bison Herd at Faith Family
Lipscomb not only graduated the clinic’s long-time medical director, Parker Panovec (BS ’86), but it also graduated one of the clinic’s newest full-time employees, May 2025 biology graduate Valeria Ochoa (BS ’25), who is working at the center as a medical assistant while earning a master’s at Lipscomb before heading to medical school.
Panovec was a family medicine physician in Jackson when two Lipscomb alumni, Gary Jerkins (LA ’70, BS ’74) and Kell Holland (LA ’79, BS ’84) suggested he consider working at Faith Family. “I thought, this is a fantastic model of how medicine should be practiced,” Panovec said of his first visit to the clinic.
He still wasn’t sure it was the place for him, but God opened every door, so Panovec and his wife Debbie (BS ’86) stepped through. He became the center’s medical director 12 years ago.
“The majority of patients are not destitute. The people who come here are the people who make Nashville Nashville,” said Panovec. “They cook food, cut grass, build office buildings and small businesses, and they are the musicians who entertain you and make things work behind the scenes. Despite working hard at their jobs, they don’t have access to affordable health care.”
The Faith Family Medical 17,000-square-foot headquarters is located at Murphy and 21st Ave.
“We spend time with our patients,” said Panovec. “Our patients are not appreciated in society with money, prestige or status, so when they come here to our clinic, we want them to understand how much we value them and care about them.”
Ochoa was introduced to Faith Family when she accompanied her aunt to the clinic to receive care. She asked about applying for the job and was hired as a part-time medical assistant (MA) while still a sophomore at Lipscomb. Ochoa helps to draw blood, to carry out EKGs and insulin training. Coming from a Hispanic community, she can also translate for patients when needed.
Her work has advanced her education by allowing her to shadow physicians, to apply her knowledge of anatomy and to get an introduction to the various specialties in medicine and how they work.
“I love medicine and I love people, so I love how they use medicine to be more than a job but to actually help people’s lives,” said Ochoa.
Partners in patient care and wellness
In addition to alumni, a number of Lipscomb programs and faculty have worked with Faith Family to serve the center’s patient population while also providing real-world experience to health science students in various disciplines.
One of the most impactful such partnerships is the Patient Assistance Program at the clinic’s pharmacy, coordinated by Sarah Uroza, associate professor of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences.
Uroza and Lipscomb student pharmacists, who are required to have an ambulatory care rotation during their studies, have managed the program for over a decade, matching needy patients with free medications offered through a network of charitable foundations operated by various pharmaceutical companies.
Eight Lipscomb University alumni work at Faith Family today and countless other have worked, volunteered or learned skills at the clinic during its history.
With Uroza on-site at the clinic 20 hours a week, the program serves about 300 patients per quarter and has provided around $4 million dollars’ worth of free medications to its patients annually since 2020, she said. Uroza expects to provide up to $5 million in medications in 2025.
Uroza and Lipscomb student pharmacists handle the complex application process for patients, thus simplifying the process and reducing denials by the companies, said Uroza.
“Sarah’s work is incredibly important in a patient population that often struggles with language and communication barriers,” said Panovec. “It’s great for patients to get their needed medications, but if they don’t know how to use them, it doesn’t do them any good. It’s important to have someone to sit down with patients and explain how to use medications.”
Uroza and student-pharmacists also hold one-on-one consultations with patients at Faith Family’s Chronic Disease Days, an event held several times a year to gather providers related to diabetes or hypertension to create a "one-stop-shop" for checkups, retinal evaluations, wound care, blood work, pharmacy services and nutrition and exercise counseling.
Lipscomb has also been highly involved with Faith Family’s Journey to Wellness program. Coordinated by two staff dietitians, the program provides exercise, cooking, nutrition and yoga classes as well as exercise equipment. The center’s urban garden produces hundreds of pounds of herbs, vegetables and berries provided free to patients and used in cooking demonstrations.
The Faith Family Medical Clinic uses its Wellness Room for exercise classes, Chronic Disease Day health fairs and to give food to patients rom the on-site garden.
Ruth Henry (LA ’71, BS ’74) now retired chair of the kinesiology department, and Autumn Marshall (BS ’92), current chair of the nutrition department, have served on Faith Family’s Journey to Wellness program board for several years.
In years past, Henry has sent kinesiology students to the center to meet their service-learning requirements by conducting fitness classes or serving as personal trainers for patients, she said.
Likewise Lipscomb dietetic interns have completed rotations at the center and have volunteered for the Chronic Disease Days. In fact, two master’s candidates, dietetic interns Shannon Rourke (BS ’24) and Caroline Stephenson Cox (GC ’24) are currently researching the effectiveness of the Chronic Disease Days on patients’ diabetes management by assessing changes in hemoglobin A1C levels.
A win-win partnership
“Over the years, our formal and informal partnership with Lipscomb has really been invaluable to our success and our growth,” said Ellenburg.
“Whenever I am working with any type of student, I tell them… You need to understand that there is more than just the physical; there is also the emotional and spiritual part of wellness,” said Panovec. “In the real world, sometimes people have to make decisions between buying groceries or buying prescriptions.”
Ellenburg echoed, “This partnership is a way to lift up the whole population to better health.”
Lipscomb President Candice McQueen came out to tour Faith Family and to meet all of the Lipscomb alumni currently working there this past spring.
Alumni at Faith Family Medical today
Many Lipscomb alumni and friends have been involved with Faith Family’s services over the years. Alumni who currently work at the center include:
- Phil Ellenburg (BS ’86), serves as the center’s CEO after serving as chief development officer beginning in 2020;
- Parker Panovec (BS ’86), serves as chief medical officer;
- Sherry Mast (BS ’94), is the center’s chief operating officer;
- Julie Webb (LA ’01, BA ’06), is Faith Family’s events manager;
- Roberto “Beto” Santiago (LA ’03, BS ’07), serves as community health care worker and chaplain;
- Benita Santiago Sanchez (LA ’06), registered nurse at the center;
- Valeria Ochoa (BS ’25), is a medical assistant at the center; and
- Eric Moss (BA ’83), is on the Faith Family Board.