Three years ago, Butterfield Trail Village and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Northwest formed a partnership that created the UAMS at BTV Clinic. Staffed by UAMS primary-care geriatrician Dr. Larry Wright, the clinic serves independent residents at the Village by appointment with a wide range of comprehensive primary care, preventive care and ongoing case management.
Butterfield Trail Village is the only retirement community in the region, possibly the state, with a dedicated primary-care physician onsite serving its independent living residents.
Dr. Robert Gullett Jr. works with medical students at the UAMS Northwest Regional Campus in Fayetteville.
Since it opened in 2017, resident physicians from UAMS have joined the BTV clinic on a rotating basis. And Gullett himself — a statewide leader in sports medicine — is also seeing Village residents as patients at the clinic.
Gullett, who is medical director of the UAMS Northwest Regional Campus in Fayetteville, said the BTV clinic is an evolving model that could be used or built upon elsewhere in the state.
“We’re building a model of quality care for older adults at Butterfield Trail Village,” Gullett has said. “And our clinic is a model that could serve as the basis for other programs or initiatives across the state.”
Gullett knows a thing or two about building successful programs. He established Arkansas’ first accredited sports medicine fellowship in 2015 as an adjunct to the UAMS Northwest family-medicine residency program.
The Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship includes clinical training at Advanced Orthopedic Specialists, Physicians Specialty Hospital, and with Arkansas Razorbacks sports teams at the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville.
Gullett is also responsible for establishing the Physical Therapy Clinic at UAMS Northwest.
He began his medical career in 1976 when he opened a private practice of orthopedic surgery in Pine Bluff, where he practiced for 30 years. During this time, he served as an adjunct faculty member for the AHEC Center in Pine Bluff from 1978 to 2006.
In 2006, he became the director of Regional Programs and Assistant Vice Chancellor at UAMS Northwest. He is currently an associate professor for UAMS College of Medicine – Orthopedic surgery.
