Meet Dr. Doug Briggs

Family doctor Doug Briggs, MD, enters his 40th year of primary care, earning his medical degree from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in May, 1987. He spent three years completing his family medicine residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and then practiced in Dallas for five years. During that time, he also studied at Dallas Theological Seminary, an experience that helped shape his calling to serve as a physician overseas in the developing world.

 

That calling ultimately led him back to North Carolina.

 

His personal vision as a family doctor has been to help restore and maintain wellness for the whole-person, appreciating our differences while upholding the things we all hold dear. Dr. Briggs says, “There is a universal need for physicians who have a longstanding commitment to treating patients as individuals within the context of their families and communities, preserving personal dignity and autonomy by training patients how to care for themselves and how to utilize our healthcare system wisely and effectively.” 

 

Dr. Briggs' path to direct primary care is rooted in the decades spent practicing medicine where relationship and trust come first. In 1995, he moved with his wife and children to southwest China, where for over twenty years he built a village doctor training program, ran a walk-in clinic, and worked in a school for disabled teens and adults — training rural doctors, caring for patients of all ages from underserved villages, and working to end the stigma faced by the poor, sick, and disabled in the Chinese countryside.

 

Prior to launching Face-To-Face, Dr. Briggs returned to Raleigh in 2018, where he helped start NeighborHealth Center and served as chief medical officer and staff physician. NeighborHealth is a faith-based Federally Qualified Health Center dedicated to compassionate, accessible care for those for whom such care has been limited or unknown.

 

His decades of service have been recognized with honors wherever he has lived including Constellation Quality Health's T. Reginald Harris, MD, Memorial Award (for physicians of North Carolina), the Triangle Business Journal's Healthcare Leadership Award, and the Yunnan Province “Friends of China” Award for Humanitarian Service.

 

Direct primary care gives Dr. Briggs the opportunity to have more one-on-one time with patients to practice medicine the way he has always believed it should be: unhurried, relational, and available.