Physician: Dr. Pamela Wilson
Medical director
Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers
Dr. Pamela Wilson is a family medicine practitioner by training, but she has served in an administrative capacity for the past 13 years – eight of them at the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center on Milwaukee’s south side.
She has fostered an environment that values innovation and collaboration, and as a result, has more than doubled its capacity for patient care during her tenure.
“I started at a time when we had one main site on Cesar Chavez Drive in Milwaukee,” she said. “We have grown both physically and in services, and plan to continue that growth.”
Today, the organization operates three facilities, two in Milwaukee and one in Waukesha, and also operates the Women, Infants & Children Nutrition Program and the UCC Senior Center.
“We exist in order to better serve the communities in which we’re located,” Wilson said. “To me, it’s important to innovate in order to decrease the amount of barriers the community has to receiving the care they need.”
Wilson has been instrumental in bringing value-added services to the clinic, including cardiology services, colorectal cancer screenings, mammograms and other preventative tests.
The center operates on grant money, donations and gifts from the community. Wilson credits her staff with its ability to do more with less, while still maintaining the highest level of superior clinical outcomes.
“We have several great community partners because they know about the stellar care we provide our patients,” she said. “We provide as much as we can for them, and it goes beyond even just the doctors; it’s the whole clinical team: the diabetes educators, the case managers, the social workers and other teams of specialists providing integrated care to our patients.”
Wilson recently created two new positions she hopes will help the organization continue to decrease barriers in the community.
By 2016, Wilson also hopes the center will be operational in all five St. Anthony School campuses throughout the city.
“Our St. Anthony clinics will provide services at five St. Anthony Schools, and will serve students ages four through 18,” Wilson said. “It’s something brand new, and a really exciting adventure for the center and our staff.”
