Surrounded by children, answering staff questions, chatting with teachers and administrators, checking messages on her phone — Dr. Lynette Wilson-Phillips ’86 is in her element.
It’s career day at Salem Middle School in Lithonia, Ga., and Kids’-Doc-On-Wheels, Wilson-Phillips’ latest venture, is a star attraction. Next year the full-service mobile pediatric clinic will serve children in the school, providing a continuum of quality care that many have not had access to before.
“There is no other model, even nationally,” says Wilson-Phillips. The bus will make weekly rounds at the school as well as others in the district, and offers telemedicine capabilities as well.
“We took the walls off the private practice,” says Wilson-Phillips, who works the unit on Fridays. “I get such a charge from it.”
According to Wilson-Phillips, one of the best things about Kids’-Doc-On-Wheels is that children with chronic conditions, such as asthma, allergies, ADHD or elevated BMI, are learning to take responsibility for their own health outcomes. Kids’-Doc-On-Wheels is a nonprofit, and because of need, Wilson-Phillips is raising support for a second bus to serve another underserved school district in the metro-Atlanta area.
“This was truly a spiritual vision,” says Wilson-Phillips. It also has been a family affair — from support from her three daughters (Rochelle, Ryann and Rhamsei) to business planning from her husband, Jonathan, and her niece; to continued volunteer staffing from close family friends. “It’s as if God has been saying, ‘Just do it. The resources will come.’”
After Wofford, Wilson-Phillips graduated from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston and completed her residency at Emory University. Not long in private practice, she had the opportunity to buy Decatur Pediatrics Group PA. Her father, Decatur Wilson, advised her to invest in the real estate as well as the medical practice. She has followed that model, with one exception, and now owns and operates practices in Clarkston, Lithonia, Smyrna and Covington, all staffed by physicians who are African-American women, and she’s opening doors for others as well, including Wofford students Aliyah Keels ’17 and Lacey Robinson ’18, who she connected with through the Black Alumni Summit. She has met other Wofford students through the medical school mock interview program.
“Wofford instilled in me confidence,” she says. “I was a resident assistant in Greene, a teaching assistant for Dr. Dobbs and Dr. Hubbard, and I served on the Judicial Commission. ... My commitment to Wofford is to continue to be available to students.”
By Jo Ann Mitchell Brasington '89