White Oak Primary Care, Inc. – High quality care with a hometown feel!

White Oak Primary Care, Inc. is a private Nurse Practitioner owned and operated adult primary care practice in Halifax, Virginia. The clinic opened in April 2020. The practice owner and solo provider is Dr. Shannon N. Scearce, DNP, FNP-C. She has been a Family Nurse Practitioner since 2006. She was born and raised in Halifax County, Virginia where she currently resides with her husband, Brandon, and their three children, Jacob, Bailey, and Griffin. She has cared for countless patients in and around Halifax County for many years and takes pride in providing high quality care with a hometown feel.

Vision statement: The work of White Oak Primary Care, Inc. is guided by respect, compassion, integrity, and quality. We treat our patients, community members, and colleagues with dignity and respect. We have compassion for all people. We abide by strict ethical and moral standards, and we maintain high-quality evidence-based care through ongoing education and continuous improvement.

Mission statement: The mission of White Oak Primary Care, Inc. is to improve the overall health and well-being of individuals in and around rural Halifax County, Virginia by providing high-quality evidence-based primary care services to our patients.

We provide adult (18 years and older) primary care services, including complete preventive physical exams, Medicare Annual Wellness Visits, Televisits, acute/sick visits, management of chronic illnesses, laboratory services, immunizations, EKGs, injectable medications, minor in-office procedures, U.S. Department of Federal Motor Carriers medical examinations, and more. All visits are by appointment only with patients initially establishing care at our facility.

We accept and bill Medicare and most major local commercial health insurance plans. We also accept uninsured patients and offer a cash pay discount and payment plans as needed.

Dr. Shannon N. Scearce is the practice owner and solo provider. She has been a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner since 2006. She received her Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) in 2018 where she was a Merit Scholar and Johnston Scholar. She also holds a Graduate Certificate in Nursing Education from UNC-CH. She received a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) in 2006, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2004, and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology in 2001 from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is board certified as a Family Nurse Practitioner by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and holds an autonomous practice license to practice independently (to the full scope of her license without physician oversight) as a Nurse Practitioner with prescriptive authority in the Commonwealth of Virginia. She is also a Certified Medical Examiner with the US Department of Transportation Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. She is a member of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and the Virginia Council of Nurse Practitioners. The majority of her experience is in rural healthcare. She has worked in the specialties of cardiology, urology, and family practice.

Dr. Scearce also loves academia. She was a Clinical Assistant Professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing for several years. In this capacity, she taught Doctor of Nursing Practice and Master of Science in Nursing students. Dr. Scearce also served as a Nurse Planner with UNC-CH’s Center for Lifelong Learning. As such, she coordinated and planned continuing education conferences for nurses in the Chapel Hill, NC area. She has been a conference speaker/presenter for these conferences herself, and she created an online Continuing Education module on the topic of managing warfarin in primary care. Dr. Scearce has published in The American Journal for Nurse Practitioners.

The name of the practice has great meaning to Dr. Scearce. She grew up on a beautiful farm, known as White Oak Farm, in Halifax County. During her childhood, the farm was a working beef cattle and tobacco farm owned by her grandparents, Walter Thomas “W.T.” Epps, Jr. and Jean Epps. She lived and worked on this farm with her parents, Mac and Dodie Epps, and brother, Jimmy Epps. Her grandparents lived just a small gravel path away from her childhood home and she spent a great deal of time with them. She considered her grandparents her “second parents”. They are now both deceased, but her father continues to own and maintain the farm although they no longer work cattle or tobacco there. Dr. Scearce believes the people of White Oak Farm (her ancestors, grandparents, parents, and brother) were instrumental in shaping her into the person she is today. They were the inspiration for naming her practice White Oak Primary Care.

The oak tree itself is a well-known symbol of strength, resistance, knowledge, honor, morale, unity, family, and longevity. It has also been considered a symbol of life and health. The oak leaf, as seen on the practice logo, is known to symbolize strength and stability. For Dr. Scearce, the words “White Oak” are more than a place or piece of family land. “White Oak” represents love, strength, family, perseverance, determination, hard work, and more. Many of the attributes she possesses herself.