Just two doctors serve this small Alabama town. What's next when they want to retire?

LaFAYETTE, Ala. — Charity Hodge had mixed feelings when she spotted a Facebook post announcing that her longtime primary care doctor was ready to retire after decades of serving their rural community.

"I was like, 'Oh my gosh, no!'" Hodge recalls while sitting in an exam room on a July afternoon, waiting to see the physician, Dr. Terry Vester. "Well, I'm happy for the retirement part, but that's my favorite doctor, so I'm crying on the inside."

Hodge, a 29-year-old customer service representative, has been seeing Vester for nine years. She had come to check in on her diabetes management and to ask for anti-nausea medication in preparation for a cruise.

LaFayette — pronounced "luh-FAY-it" by most residents — and surrounding Chambers County face high rates of disease and chronic illness. Yet Terry Vester and her husband, Dr. Al Vester, are the only primary care doctors in the town of 2,700 residents, surrounded by farms and other small communities.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/09/18/1199885888/primary-care-rural-alabama-telehealth

A tiny town near me lost its medical clinic when the longtime NP retired in April. Now a new NP has taken over and reopened it. Many little mountain towns in TN and VA have immigrant doctors who are cherished by the residents.