Daniel R. Barnes, D.O.
Daniel R. Barnes, D.O., spent 18 months leading a double life – as a physician and U.S. Army major attached to Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg and as a physician with FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital Hospitalist Service. After 10 years in the military, however, he is now a civilian and able to concentrate solely on his civilian career. Dr. Barnes attended medical school at the Ohio University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Athens and completed a residency in internal medicine at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He was recognized with the Nathan Esteschik Outstanding Teaching Award for his work with family practice residents at Womack, and was also recognized for his work in developing a mobile clinic to help meet the underserved medical needs of Iraqi citizens.

Jenifir J. Bruno, M.D.
Jenifir J. Bruno, M.D., is originally from West Pittston, Pa., where she grew up the eldest child, and only girl, in a family with four children. Three of those four children – Dr. Bruno and two of her brothers – are now physicians, joining their father, grandfather, three uncles and a cousin in devoting their lives to medicine. Dr. Bruno earned her premedical education from the University of Scranton (Pa.) and her M.D. from the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Neb. She completed a residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. She is board certified in internal medicine and pediatrics.

Erin L. Clark, M.D., MPH
Erin L. Clark, M.D., MPH, grew up in the land of Disney in Anaheim, Calif., leaving only to attend medical school on the East Coast. From that point and until just recently, she was attached to the military. After earning a bachelor's degree in psychobiology and then a master’s degree in public health from the University of California in Riverside, Dr. Clark set out for metropolitan Washington, D.C., and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. She earned her medical degree there and then completed an internship and residency at Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center. After her residency, she moved to Fort Bragg and Womack Army Medical Center, where for the last three years of her seven-year military obligation she was an internist and assistant chief of the Department of Medicine.

Daniel S. DiFrischia, M.D.
Daniel S. DiFrischia, M.D., grew up in Pennsylvania and earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh. He attended Pennsylvania State University for medical school, earning his degree in medicine in 1989. Dr. DiFrishia completed his residency at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, and is board certified in internal medicine. Hepracticed medicine in the greater Ohio area and in Asheville, N.C., before joining the Hospitalist team at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital.

Akaninyene S. Joseph, M.D.
Born in Nigeria, where the medical needs are great, Akaninyene S. Joseph, M.D., decided as a child that he wanted to be a doctor. After receiving a college degree from the University of Lagos in Lagos, Nigeria, Dr. Joseph entered the University of Lagos College of Medicine, where he earned his M.D. in 1992. His first medical experience outside of medical school took him to the sister islands of Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. Dr. Joseph immigrated to the United States in 2001 to do an internship in internal medicine and later a residency in primary care at Brooklyn Hospital Center, an affiliate of New York’s Cornell University. Before joining the Hospitalist Service program at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in August 2005, he worked with a private practice internal medicine group in Sanford.

John M. Kerr III, M.D.
John M. Kerr III, M.D., was born in Owensboro, Ky., but lived there only six months before his father, a general practitioner, moved the family to Hamilton, Ala. Dr. Kerr entered medical school at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in Lexington after earning a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Harding University in Searcy, Ark. He completed a combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and practiced internal medicine and pediatric hospital medicine at Maury Regional Hospital in Columbia, Tenn., before joining the Hospitalist Service program at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital. Dr. Kerr is board certified in internal medicine and pediatrics.

Mark F. Medford, M.D.
Mark F. Medford, M.D., is first and foremost a North Carolinian, an Asheville native who spends his time away from work in a variety of outdoor activities including running, hiking and mountain climbing. North Carolina educated, Dr. Medford received his premedical education from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee and his M.D. from the East Carolina University School of Medicine in Greenville. He interned at East Carolina University/Pitt County Memorial Hospital, where he also completed a residency in internal medicine and pediatrics. He is board certified in internal medicine and board eligible in pediatrics. Dr. Medford and his wife, Victoria, make their home in Seven Lakes.

Charles Ofosu, M.D., MPH
Born in Ghana, Charles Ofosu, M.D., MPH, knew by high school that he wanted to be a doctor. He just decided to approach his goal a little bit differently. Instead of going directly into a medical residency after earning degrees in surgery and medicine from the University of Ghana Medical School, Dr. Ofosu traveled to the U.S. and to Baltimore, Md., where he entered the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He received a master's degree in public health in 2003. Dr. Ofosu completed a residency in internal medicine at St. Vincent’s Medical Center, in Bridgeport, Conn. The hospital is an affiliate of the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Saul Arturo G. Salvador, M.D.
Born in the Philippines, Saul Arturo G. Salvador, M.D., grew up wanting to care for people in a family of physicians. Deciding at age 5 that he wanted to be a doctor, too, he attended Catholic school from elementary school through medical school, earning his B.S. degree in biology from the University of Santo Tomas College of Science and his M.D. from the University of Santo Tomas College of Medicine & Surgery. He completed a medical internship at San Juan de Dios Educational Foundation in Pasay City, Philippines, and a transitional residency and internal medicine residency at St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark, N.J. He is board certified in internal medicine,

Darrin G. Cutrell, P.A.-C
Darrin Cutrell, P.A.-C, grew up in Shiloh, a rural community off the Albemarle Sound in extreme northeastern North Carolina. He decided early on that medicine was a dynamic and challenging field and, after little investigation, directed his life toward a career as a physician assistant.

He feels much the same way about hospital medicine. Cutrell joined the Hospitalist Services at FirstHealth

Moore Regional Hospital in the spring of 2005. He came to Pinehurst and Moore Regional after five years as a physician assistant at Eastern Carolina Cardiovascular in Elizabeth City, which provided preventive cardiology and internal medicine services from Bertie to Dare counties. Cutrell’s education began at East Carolina University in Greenville, where he earned a B.S. in environmental health. After completing his undergraduate degree, he was accepted into Duquesne University Master’s Physician Assistant program in Pittsburgh.

Wesley Greene, P.A.-C
Wesley Greene, P.A.-C joined the Hospitalist Service program at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in January 2007, just after completing the Physician Assistant Program at Fayetteville's Methodist College. A native of Cleveland County in Western North Carolina, Greene enrolled in Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, where his interest in baseball, biology and chemistry took up much of his time. After a counselor at Gardner-Webb pointed him toward a career as a physician assistant, he started accumulating the clinical experience that he needed for P.A. school by working at Crawley Memorial Hospital. He became interested in internal medicine during an eight-week rotation at Womack Army Medical Center during his P.A. training.

Sara Hoover, P.A.-C
Sara Hoover, P.A.-C, studied medical microbiology, chemistry and psychology at Fayetteville’s Methodist University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in 2004. She enrolled in Methodist’s Physician Assistant Program and earned her master’s degree in 2006.

Shridhar Iyer, M.D.
Shridhar Iyer, M.D., comes from a family of engineers – except for a physician-grandfather who got him interested in medicine. But that was only the start of this career path. Since February 2008, Dr. Iyer has been a physician with the Hospitalist Service at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital. Previously, he was an academic hospitalist in the Department of General Internal Medicine at Wake Forest University. Dr. Iyer began his path to Moore Regional when he earned a B.S. degree in pharmacy and an M.S. in pharmacology from the College of Pharmacy at St. John’s University in New York. He then received his Ph.D. in pharmacology from the College of Pharmacy at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he was a graduate assistant in the Department of Pharmacodynamics and a research fellow in the Department of Physiology. Afterward, he was a research fellow in the Hypertension Center at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University. He earned his medical degree from the SABA University School of Medicine in the Netherlands Antilles in 2003 and completed a residency in internal medicine at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, where he was outstanding first-year resident and outstanding resident in internal medicine. Dr. Iyer has published numerous abstracts and other publications based on his research on hypertension, and he hopes eventually to combine the practice of medicine with clinical research.

Dorothy Mixa, M.D.
Dorothy Mixa, M.D., looks back to the late 19th/early 20th century for her medical inspiration – to Sir William Osler, a Canadian-born physician whose “Principles and Practice of Medicine” set the standards for medical practice for many years. “Ever since I was a child, I have always been interested in medicine and disease processes,” she says. “I truly believe, as Osler, that ‘happiness lies in a vocation that satisfies the soul.’”
As a member of the Hospitalist Services staff at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital, Dr. Mixa does just that. “I enjoy clinically assessing, counseling and communicating plans of care to my patients,” she says. Dr. Mixa attended Drew University in Madison, N.J., before earning her medical degree from the University of Medicine in Lodz in Poland. That six-year medical education track consisted of one year of rotating clinical internships in internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, surgery and anesthesiology. After completing the program, she returned to the U.S. for an internal medicine residency at Easton Hospital in Easton, Pa. She was chief resident in 2004-2005 and medical resident of the year in 2005. Before joining the Hospitalist Services program at Moore Regional in January 2008, she worked in the Hospitalist program at Easton Hospital, where her duties included teaching and supervising residents and medical students on the inpatient ward service.

Ramey L. Wilson, M.D.
The son of a career Marine Corps officer, Ramey L. Wilson, M.D., earned his undergraduate degree in human engineering from West Point and embarked on a career as an Army field artillery officer before deciding that he wanted to become a doctor. While still attached to Fort Bragg, Dr. Wilson picked up his medical school prerequisites at Fayetteville Tech and Fayetteville State University and then entered the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., for his medical degree. He completed both his internship and residency in internal medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He continues to practice internal medicine with the Army at Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg. Dr. Wilson and his wife have two young sons and live in Southern Pines.

Misty Pedacchio, P.A.-C,
Misty Pedacchio, P.A.-C, grew up in Dubois, Pa. which is just north of Pittsburgh. She decided to become a physician assistant because she liked the fact that medicine is a changing field and because she is always challenged to provide better care. “It is so rewarding to be able to help someone at his or her weakest moments,” she says. Pedacchio joined the Hospitalist team at FirstHealth Moore Regional in August 2007. She came to Pinehurst and Moore Regional after several years as a physician assistant in Greensboro, where she worked in outpatient internal medicine. She decided on hospital medicine, because she had been exposed to outpatient internal medicine for several years. “I thought seeing the other side would complete my knowledge,” she says. Pedacchio’s education began at St. Francis University in Pennsylvania, where she earned a degree in Allied Health Science and completed the physician assistant program. During their time off, Pedacchio and her husband enjoy relaxing with friends, traveling to the beach and having fun with their two spoiled dogs.