The birth of the Boice-Willis clinic was both unheralded and unannounced, an informal dateless event, as two young surgeons from the staff of Johnson-Willis Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, came down to the little town of Rocky Mount in North Carolina, to “take a plunge.” With money borrowed from their families, they bought a controlling interest in what had become the Park View Hospital that had opened its doors in July 1914. Dr. Edmund Simpson Boice had earlier explored the field, and felt that together with Dr. Byrd Charles Willis, a life insurance salesman turned surgeon, they could make a go of it.

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Slowly this association began to turn things around under the binding force of two ardent students of surgery, toiling night and day, to cultivate their practices of the emerging art. And soon, a need was recognized to have support from additional medical resources in non-surgical as well as surgical fields. By 1937, the Clinic grows to seven and specialties evolve keeping the early vision of Drs. Boice and Willis high priority of physicians “keeping up” in their fields.

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​Founded in Rocky Mount over 100 years ago, we are proud to continue the legacy of our founders. Healthcare has changed drastically in the last century. Neither Dr. Boice, Dr. Willis nor other early physicians would understand or appreciate the requirements and restrictions on our physicians and staff to care for patients today.