Keeping Up With Dr. Jones
Like a sudden breeze, he glides along through the hallways, darting around one corner and then another. Pausing for a brief moment he leans on a tall desk to say hello to a group of employees, then whirls around and continues down the hall, popping his head through a doorway to joke with a young female patient about missing school. It's now apparent that anyone trying to keep up with him will definitely need their Wheaties. Dr. David Jones, Executive Director of Capstone Rural Health Clinic in Parrish, is a man on a mission. A man with a purpose. Tall, sandy-haired, dressed in dark slacks, blue and white checked Oxford shirt, navy blue blazer, and a perpetual smile that says, "I'm happy to be here. I love my job. Life is good."Dr. Foster David Jones didn't plan to work in the medical field. After graduating from T.W. Martin High School in 1991, he spent a year at the University of Montevallo. "I wanted to major in Sociology but that didn't work out," he says. "My dad told me, 'Son, what are you going to do with that degree?' I decided I wanted to be a missionary. Long story short, I came back here and went to nursing school in the two-year RN program.After moving to Prattville in 1993, David finished his bachelor's and masters degree fairly quickly. "I became a nurse practitioner but I couldn't find a job doing that," he says. "My plan was to go to medical school and then go down to Africa and live my life."Finally David was hired as a floating nurse practitioner at a clinic in Clanton and fell in love with the health center program. "They were a big company with about ten clinics," David says. "Like Capstone, they were very deliberate in the mission they saw. I had about five years experience learning there. I saw a lot of unfair and disadvantaged situations, and believed in the power we had to help people with health care."David was placed in a secession plan program which would allow him to take an active role in management if someone left. Then the clinic director, Dr. Duncan, had a motorcycle accident in 2011 and had to retire. "Fortunately we were fairly prepared for that change. It was completely unexpected at that time and it thrust me over into this role," he says.In 2006 a position became available with Capstone Clinic in Parrish. After living for thirteen years in Prattville, David missed being back home. "I really wanted to come back to Walker County," he says. "They had a three year grant, and the next year after I came they became a fully funded health center. God has totally blessed us in that, and in this job."David Jones is the kind of person who never seems to slow down, even when he's not working. He and his wife Lindsey love traveling with their three daughters: Mary, 12, Raleigh, 9, and Molly, 6. They are also very active in their church, Mt. Philadelphia Baptist in Cordova.Although his path has taken him in a different direction than he originally planned, David has embraced the changes well. "I never really wanted to be in management because I like hands-on patient care," he says. "But I love it here.
The mission of what we do is important. I just believe in people getting better, being healthier. It's an extension of who we are, to nurture and support folks to get better. Our emphasis is prevention and living well. We don't want to just fix your cold, we want to make sure the prevention tests are done and that you're feeling good about who you are." David not only loves his job, he shares Capstone's vision to help improve the lives of others. "It's just a wonderful opportunity to work in a health center like this, and the benefits this center offers the people of Walker County are immeasurable," he says. "The people in small towns here have somewhere for the less fortunate citizens to go and that's important, even if they don't realize it."Capstone currently operates three locations in Walker County: Capstone Clinic in Parrish, Capstone Cottage in Jasper, and Capstone Nauvoo. Recently they received a million dollar capital grant for infrastructure to construct a new building on the site of the Parrish location, which David admits is rather unusual. "Those grants generally aren't given very often to health care centers. They don't let us purchase property with those funds. It's very rare we have capital opportunities." Groundbreaking is set for August-September this year. The new building will be 6900-8000 square feet, almost twice that of the current building's 4000 square feet.Which means Dr. Jones will have even more room to breeze through the hallways. 78