Rural family physician appointed to
national advisory council

TAFP member Adrian Billings, Ph.D., M.D., has been appointed to the National Advisory Council on the National Health Service Corps by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. He will serve a three-year term.

Billings is a family physician practicing full spectrum family medicine in rural Alpine, Sanderson, and Fort Stockton. He says he is “humbled” by the appointment.

“I was fortunate and blessed to receive a National Health Service Corps Scholarship while in medical school,” Billings says. “This scholarship enabled me to return to the Texas-Mexico border and fulfill my scholarship obligation from 2007-2011. I hope now that I am able to give back to the National Health Service Corps by bringing a rural perspective to the Council.”

Billings has spoken nationally for NHSC at scholar and loan repayment conferences and speaks passionately of his experience working with underserved populations in a rural setting.

He is currently chief medical officer for Cactus Health Services, medical director of student health services for Sul Ross State University, assistant clinical professor of family and community medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine and the University of Texas Medical Branch, and holds active privileges at Big Bend Regional Medical Center.

Billings received a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University, and a doctorate in philosophy in experimental pathology and a doctorate in medicine from the University of Texas Medical Branch. Billings completed his family medicine residency at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, serving his final year as chief resident. He then completed an obstetrics fellowship at JPS.