Leading by example
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If 5-year-old John Snellings had his way, his future may have looked quite different.
“If you ask my mother, I was talking about being a doctor when I was 5 years old, but I don’t remember that,” says John Snellings, MD, Associate Professor of Family & Community Medicine. “I remember wanting to be a meteorologist and watching The Weather Channel for hours at a time. It was science based, and they were helping people — it really piqued my interest.”
Thankfully for EVMS, he followed his mother’s recollection instead, and today he is the Glenn R. Mitchell Chair in Generalist Medicine and Chair and Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine.
“Medicine is all about helping people, and being able to have a career that had a component of service was important to me,” Dr. Snellings says.
After attending the University of Virginia, the Hampton Roads native earned a master’s and medical degree from EVMS and then completed his residency training there as well. He later became Associate Program Director of the Ghent Family Medicine Residency Program. After a promotion to Program Director, he helped combine the Portsmouth Family Medicine and Ghent Family Medicine residencies.
Returning to Hampton Roads and serving the community that helped raise him was a dream come true. “EVMS is extremely community focused on the underserved population,” Dr. Snellings says. “It’s not just a catch phrase, it’s what we really do, and I feel fortunate to be here.”
In addition to his time caring for patients in the office, you will likely see Dr. Snellings and his colleagues volunteering at community events on evenings and weekends. You’ll often find them providing free physicals for high school students, holding community health screenings or running a 10K to raise awareness for health issues.
As Residency Program Director and now Chair, he leads by example. “You can’t ask others to commit and volunteer their time and talent if you aren’t willing to do it yourself.”
In addition to volunteer work, he prioritizes mentoring medical students, residents and junior faculty. “I had exposure to great mentors and teachers here, both in medical school and during residency, and they were the types of people who made me want to stay long term and who continue to support me now,” Dr. Snellings says.
He also feels mentorship is critical to the future of healthcare. “It’s important to be able to mentor and cultivate the next generation of primary care providers because there’s such a shortage, and we need to fill that pipeline.”
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the United States is expected to face a major shortage of primary care physicians within the next 10 years.
“When community leaders turned dream into reality 50 years ago with the opening of EVMS, a key objective was to increase the number of physicians in the region,” says Alfred Abuhamad, MD, President, Provost and Dean of the School of Medicine and the Mason C. Andrews Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology. “Dr. Snellings stands as a wonderful example of the school’s workforce success.”
While it isn't warning Hampton Roads residents about potential weather threats, Dr. Snellings, his colleagues and the many he has mentored or trained are certainly providing a much-needed public service for the community.
“There are people in this area who need access to healthcare,” Dr. Snellings says. “We have a great opportunity now to partner with ODU and Sentara and look forward to exploring new avenues to better serve the community and provide that access.”