Health care is deeply personal. It meets us at our most vulnerable moments — when we’re sick, scared, exhausted or simply unsure. In a community like ours, it’s also deeply relational, built over years of trust, familiarity and steady presence.
But today, health care is changing — not because of a single policy or headline, but because a generation of providers is quietly stepping away.
In this issue of Discovering Bulloch, we share the stories of three women whose recent retirements mark the close of defining chapters in local health care. Each served in different roles, yet all built careers rooted in service, trust and long-term relationships with patients.
Patty Law became Bulloch County’s first nurse practitioner at a time when the profession was still unfamiliar, helping expand access to care and paving the way for those who followed. Jean Bailey spent more than four decades meeting patients wherever they needed her — from hospital bedsides to urgent care exam rooms — bringing steadiness, experience and an unmistakable sense of humor. And Dr. Cheryl Perkins co-founded Bulloch Pediatrics in 2006, where she spent nearly two decades guiding families through childhood and beyond, often caring for patients who later returned as parents themselves.
Together, their stories reflect more than individual accomplishments. They illustrate the depth of experience now leaving clinics across Georgia and raise an important question for communities like ours: How do we replace a generation of care?
These women practiced medicine during a time of tremendous change — from paper charts to electronic records, from solo practices to hospital systems, from local inpatient care to regional specialization. Yet the heart of their work remained the same: listening, teaching, reassuring and showing up.
As Bulloch County continues to grow and change, their legacy lives on in the patients they cared for, the providers they mentored and the community they helped sustain. The impact of their work remains, reminding us that beyond systems, schedules and staffing, at the heart of health care are people — and trust built over time.
