Distinguished Achievement Award - Julian R. Taylor, MD ’69

Julian R. Taylor, MD ’69, is a native of Newton, N.C., who has spent his medical career serving communities in eastern North Carolina. He earned a bachelor’s degree in zoology with high honors from North Carolina State University and received the Lucy Reynolds Critz Scholarship to attend what was then known as the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University. As a medical student, he was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honorary Medical Society and at graduation received the Cardiology Award and the Upjohn Award, which was given by members of the class to recognize a fellow classmate with potential as a physician.

He completed a rotating internship at Greenville (S.C.) General Hospital, served as general medical officer at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina and finished his family medicine residency at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, S.C. He has been certified by the American Board of Family Medicine continuously since 1974.

In 1974, Taylor joined Ahoskie Family Physicians, a practice in Ahoskie, N.C., that included general medical care, pediatrics, obstetrics, and inpatient, emergency and nursing home care. He was named chief of the medical staff at what is now ECU Health Roanoke-Chowan Hospital in 1981 and in 1993, accepted a position as medical director and staff physician at the Boice-Willis Immediate Care Clinic in Rocky Mount, N.C. He returned to Ahoskie Family Physicians in 2001 to practice general outpatient medical care and nursing home care. The practice became Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center in 2005, and he remained on staff until his retirement in 2022.

During the 1980s, Taylor served the American Board of Family Medicine as an item writer, submitting questions to be considered for use in the board’s certification and recertification exams. He also participated one year in reviewing exam questions that had been accepted for use by the board. Taylor also has served on the Hertford County Board of Health and the Hertford County Educational Foundation Board, and he holds lifetime memberships in the North Carolina Medical Society, the American Academy of Family Medicine, the North Carolina Academy of Family Medicine and the North Carolina State University Alumni Association.

Taylor and his wife, Jerrie, have three children and six grandchildren.