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Spring 2015 • Kentucky
Pikeville Pediatrician to
Population Medicine ‘Doc’
By Rice C. Leach, M.D., President,
Lexington Medical Society
James Stephen (Steve) Davis, MD is a
pediatrician who started attending to a
few new born babies a year in Glasgow,
Kentucky after completing his residency
at the University of Kentucky and ended
up responsible for the well-being of over
50,000 new born babies a year as Acting
Commissioner of the Kentucky Department
for Public Health (KDPH). He grew up in
Pikeville and Lexington and was a star baseball player at Tates Creek High School in
the 1960’s. After graduating from Morehead
State University he attended the University
of Kentucky Medical School before his residency training.
Steve left Glasgow after a few years to return
to Pikeville where he was one of those
doctors who saw anyone who needed him.
Rich, poor, insured or uninsured it –– didn’t
matter. He once said that an older physician
in Pikeville told him that patients would
come see him no matter what, even climbing
down from the cliffs to see him if he treated
them “like he cared”. He stayed in Pikeville
running his clinic in the basement of a building until he became the chief of Maternal
and Child Health services for the KDPH
in 1995. He served as chairman of the Pike
County Board of Health and was familiar
with some of the state programs through his
role as a pediatrician supporting the county
health department and their child health
programs.
Speaking of his tenure in Frankfort, he said
that in Pikeville he might be able to make a
difference for a few thousand children but at
the state level, he could have an impact on
thousands of children. And have an impact
he did. He was the driving force behind the
public health aspects of the HANDS program initiated as part of Governor Patton’s
Early Childhood Initiative and funded by
tobacco settlement money. He and others
established a program of home visiting not
unlike the public health nursing programs
from decades earlier. Trained staff visited
‘at risk’ first time mothers to coach them on
how to manage their pregnancy and their
new babies’ first two years. Babies born to
mothers who participated in the HANDS
program demonstrated an earlier entry in to
prenatal care, a decrease in very low birth
weight babies and significant decreases in
child neglect and child abuse.
of the entire team,” primary medical, dental
and pharmacy care services have become
available in more locations. Hundreds of
people have a doctor today when yesterday
they had to go without.
Dr. Davis has taken his clinical training
and experience to make things better for
thousands of people. He is practicing this
Population Medicine we keep hearing about.
He also helped champion the expanded
newborn screening. He demonstrated that
a broad-based newborn screening program
would identify babies compromised by
metabolic and genetic disorders allowing
for the treating of scores of children with
correctible metabolic defects. With the help
of others he somehow managed to work the
funding into the KDPH budget.
After retiring from state government he
joined HealthFirst Bluegrass, Inc. as its
Executive Director. In this role he led
Lexington’s largest federally qualified health
center from serious operational problems
to an independent tax-exempt organization
that operates independently of local government and has expanded from ten service
sites to thirteen sites. On his watch, and, as
he always says, “standing on the shoulders
James Stephen (Steve) Davis, M.D.
Cardinal Hill
“Cardinal Hill Home Care is an extension of the quality
care offered by Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Hospital”
Serving Fayette, Franklin, Jessamine, Madison and Woodford Counties
(859) 367-7148
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