Two UNC medical students share their unique experiences in building trust, continuity, and community-centered care for underserved populations in North Carolina through the Community Health Training Program.
A deep sense of community inspires many medical students to live and practice medicine in North Carolina. Across small towns in the Tar Heel State, the need for rural physicians remains strong, as many communities continue to grapple with limited access to healthcare, long travel distances for specialty services, and a growing demand for providers who understand the unique challenges of rural life.
UNC medical students Matthew Hutchens and Christiana Daniel are dedicated to filling that need thanks to the Community Health Training Program. On Match Day 2026, the moment they learn where they matched to complete a residency program, they will take their commitment to a new level.
Serving the Underserved Back Home
UNC medical student Matthew Hutchens understood the significance of service to the state as an adolescent. He found his love in medicine though his mom, who was a pharmacist. In addition to that, he also learned that building relationships within a small rural community is very rewarding and that it was important to pay it forward.
“There were many older men from my community that really fed into me and made me who I am today,” said Matthew. “The least that I can do is go back and help them this way and feed back to them.”
Born in Lee County, Matthew always knew he wanted to return home to practice medicine. When applying to medical school at UNC, he was already aware of the Community Health Training Program.
Benefits of the program involve students who will do most of their clinical experiences in their selected specialty and at the location of their residency program. This allows the students to form relationships with the doctors before they even become residents, as well as learn how that residency location operates.
Once Matthew entered the Community Health Training Program, his dream of becoming a rural family medicine physician began taking shape.
“Once I figured out I wanted to do medicine, the program was really set to where I wanted to be,” he said. “It envisioned everything that I wanted to do with my future career. Just being able to give me the opportunity to get there a little bit quicker. It shined.”
Working in rural communities offered Matthew the chance to form personal, lasting connections—one of the main reasons he feels called to serve. Through the program, he experienced firsthand how to address his patients’ most critical needs while building trust.
“While working in Chatham County with my preceptor, I was able to see the same patient a couple of times,” he said. “Just to have the continuity with them, dealing with their chronic diseases, and seeing the ’wins and losses’ of their health pushed me to be their advocate. It gave me a sense of an accomplishment to be able to own that.”
Family medicine involves lifelong care by treating patients of all ages and addressing a wide range of health needs—a specialty that leads Matthew to caring for the whole person. From inpatient medicine to different procedures, he discovered how essential family physicians are in rural areas.
“I never realized how much I could do in family medicine until I got into the program,” he said. “I think you can have a wide scope of practice as a family medicine physician, and you can offer a lot of different treatments. Specialty care can be hard to find in rural areas, and some patients may have difficulty with transportation, or they may have difficulty with finances. So, if I’m able to offer that for patients, I think that is one step closer to bridging the gap for health care for rural patients.”
As Match Day marches closer, Matthew is committed to service to the state after learning how to provide the best care through the Community Health Training Program. It’s an experience that deepened his appreciation for the role family medicine physicians play at the intersection of medicine and community service. He says this rural setting offers a new perspective where future medical students can see themselves making a profound impact on communities while offering compassionate, effective care.
“That’s one of the reasons that I feel drawn to be able to go back to my hometown, to take care of people that I’ve known my whole life,” Matthew said. “I’ve always thought that it was my service to go back and work in Lee County. Because we can prescribe medications to patients. We can talk to them until they’re blue in the face, until I’m blue in the face. But, if there’s not trust involved, sometimes it’s just words at the end of the day. That’s what I really want to embody, especially when I’m out practicing in my future career.”
A Love for Rural Life
The days of the COVID-19 pandemic affected people in countless ways, and for medical student Christiana Daniel, it marked her first experience serving on the frontlines as a healthcare worker.
“The pandemic happened spring of my freshman year of college at North Carolina State University and I started helping with volunteering,” Christiana said. “I helped at a nonprofit where we were swabbing and testing for COVID. I also volunteered at vaccine clinics at homeless shelters in Durham and that’s when I found everything that I had been looking for. You get that human connection, you get to work one-on-one, you get to reach populations that are in need and help them in ways that you didn’t even realize they needed sometimes.”
Christiana discovered her love for medicine right then. She valued working closely with vulnerable populations—fulfilling her desire to serve others during their most challenging moments. These early patient interactions helped her build the foundation of trust that would later guide her approach to care.
“One of the patients that I had at one of the homeless shelters had a lot of questions about the vaccines,” she said. “I did a lot of one-on-one with patients and trying to figure out what were their hesitations about the vaccine. I remember speaking to this gentleman and he really trusted me with the information I was giving him. He even told me it helped a lot that I looked like him and that he trusted me. The thing that he said to me that really solidified medicine for me was we need more people like you doing this kind of work.”
Those words fueled Christiana’s desire to pursue rural medicine. From Gastonia, North Carolina, she knew she wanted to stay in the state long term. After completing her undergraduate degree at NC State, she selected UNC to begin the rural health track. Joining the Community Health Training Program was the next step in planting her roots as a future pediatrician.
“UNC Pediatrics has such a great family and community vibe,” said Christiana. “I felt like I would be well supported in my training and be able to reach those populations that you aren’t able to with all residencies.”
She also witnessed firsthand the unique challenges faced by children in rural areas. One experience that stays with her involves a child with autism whose family struggled to access resources.
“Being able to take the time to find ways to access those resources for him and for his family, who was stretched really thin, told me everything I needed to know—there are people in rural areas who really need help. They need access, and I was happy to help provide that.”
These clinical experiences strengthened Christiana’s skills in working with vulnerable communities and reinforced her commitment to building authentic relationships in rural settings. As she prepares for Match Day, she is ready to celebrate her journey and her dedication to serving North Carolina.
“I’m truly thankful to the people of North Carolina for getting me to this point. I look forward to spending my career here, giving back, and hopefully leaving the state better for future generations.”
Media Contact: Brittany Phillips, Communications Specialist, UNC Health | UNC School of Medicine