Alum brings family medicine approach to student health

“I always thought that I would stay a country doc,” says Shannan Green, M’02, H’05. “I imagined that’s what I would do for my whole career.”

For more than a decade, that prediction was true. Green was an early participant in the VCU School of Medicine’s four-year International/Inner City/Rural Preceptorship program, leading to a placement at VCU’s Shenandoah Valley Family Medicine in Front Royal, Virginia. She went on to complete her residency at the practice and was one of the first residents hired to stay on and join the faculty.

After a few years, Green shifted into private practice while continuing to work with residents as a preceptor. She even briefly served as the interim assistant residency director.

Green says she enjoyed the chance to “do a little bit of everything” and that she could get to know and care for all branches of an extended family.

“It was just this supportive group of people who would come back time after time,” she says. “I loved being able to take care of the family as a whole and teach good habits to the point where I was mostly seeing patients for well visits instead of for sick visits.”

While there was much to love about rural medicine, by 2014, Green was ready to return to Richmond to be closer to her own family.

“That’s when it gets interesting,” she says. “I Googled family practice positions in Richmond, and the first position that popped up was one with University Student Health Services at VCU. I didn’t know anyone who worked in college health, but it sounded absolutely perfect.”

Practicing medicine ‘the way we want to’

VCU’s health center, Green says, presented a sweet spot for her interests. She’s been able to provide a balance of women’s health, sexual health and mental health while still drawing on her experiences in rural health care.

She has new reason to appreciate that her residency program had a strong mental health curriculum. Initially, it prepared her to work in a county with one psychiatrist who had long wait times for appointments. Green says she became comfortable providing complex mental health care to all ages – from young children all the way through to patients dealing with dementia. Now that she works primarily with patients in their late teens and 20s, Green wants to guide them to the tools they need to be successful in college and throughout their lifetime.

“I want them to realize that, even with diagnoses like depression and bipolar disorder, they can persevere and go on to have a very full and rich life,” she says. “We’re going to talk about all the tools they’ll need in their toolbox. As they get into their late 20s and 30s, and life gets more difficult, they won’t be held back by their mental health.”

While Green no longer sees her patients for decades, she is equally dedicated to equipping them for a lifetime of good health — a mission she now drives forward after being named the director of the University Student Health Center in 2022.

She says the center’s commitment to delivering excellent care regardless of whether students have insurance makes it easier to provide that level of patient education. Green can see patients as often as they want, for as long as they need; every visit is included in their tuition costs.

“It frees us up to practice medicine the way we want to,” she says. “I think that’s what I have loved most about working here.

“Education was always a big part of what I enjoyed about being in family practice. Now I can start my patients off in their teens and 20s with excellent habits, and they’re always going to be good consumers of health care. That’s what I strive for — that they have this intelligence about their body.”