Dr. Shannon Dowler
MD, CPE, FAAFP
I’m a family physician living in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina with a national reach and expertise in health policy, public payers, and health equity with a special interest in advancing sexual health and reducing sexually transmitted infections. Using creative tools, I am a huge proponent of having fun while thoughtfully disrupting the status quo.
Let’s hang out!
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Getting Creative: Videos
A series of music videos help tell the story of STIs in creative and fun ways! Check out the video that went viral about STIs in the aging population!
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What I Am Up To
There’s a lot going on from podcasts to book related events to professional engagements!
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What I Am Talking About
Find upcoming and recently completed public speaking engagements on all topics!
Want to meet the team?
My words create change.
For as long as I can remember, I have loved writing. Some mornings I wake up and realize that a patient encounter or political upheaval has worked its way into my subconscious and the day cannot begin until I put a pen to paper. Whether an op-ed for the newspaper, a healthcare blog, or a new chapter in a book, my writing takes a variety of shapes.
Equally powerful to prose is my drive to rhyme, hence my alter ego, Rap Dkta D, where I use humor and familiar beats to educate and entertain on important, often “taboo” topics! What better way to teach about asymptomatic chlamydia than to rhyme it with “you may not know when that bug has gotten into ya”? It's not just iambic pentameter— I'm a limerick maker as well...and no topic is off-limits!
I balance leadership and policy to impact health care.
For twenty years I maintained a panel of patients as a family doctor while also providing services in the STD clinic. Balancing my clinical time with executive leadership is not always easy but it has proven to be a full and rewarding career! In 2019 I accepted the role of the clinical leader of the NC Medicaid program to help transition the program through a massive transformation to managed care. The COVID years involved leadership in the state’s response to COVID for testing and vaccine equity and in 2022, I accepted a larger role with the broader Department of Health and Human Services focused on Healthy Access and Equity while continuing the work of Medicaid.
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Dear Chlamydia, your timing’s not great,
But it sure was a fabulous date!
The fella looked clean
(if you know what I mean)
Perhaps PID’s just a matter of fate.
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For some it begins as a trickle,
Some men, when they pee, feel a tickle.
The symptoms, they vary,
So clinicians! be wary,
Trichomonas is capricious and fickle.
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With an oldie so many have caught!
Our pharmacopeias
Say gooey gonorrhea's
Outsmarting all the antibiotics we've got!