Who is Verde valley Community Hospice?
Verde Valley Community Hospice was established in 2008 by two passionately devoted Firefighters, Trent Adams and Billy Hayes. Together, they have served on the Fire Department a combined 50 years. Trent and his wife Shelia, a Registered Hospice Nurse, along with Billy, share the same passion to provide quality palliative end-of-life care throughout the Verde Valley community. It is a direct result of their long careers within community service through the Fire Department that they identified a need for a different approach to hospice care that was more locally minded and less corporate driven. Opening Verde Valley Community Hospice has allowed Trent and Billy to continue serving our community by helping those in need of hospice services and their families at a time of great stress. It is by their vision and devotion to patient care that Verde Valley Community Hospice strives to provide hope and compassion to all of those in need of hospice services.
Medical Directors
Julia Williams, M.D., is our Medical Director and has worked in hospice for over six years. Dr. Williams is a 1986 graduate of the University of Maryland at Baltimore School of Medicine and is Board Certified in Family Practice and Urgent Care Medicine. She has practiced Emergency Medicine for over 27 years and continues to practice at Flagstaff Medical Center while also broadening her area of practice to include hospice. “I wanted the privilege of caring for people throughout their entire life cycle. Working in hospice compliments my medical practice and has given me greater insights into human nature and the end-of-life experience.” Even though Dr. Williams remains busy with her career as an Emergency Room Physician and Hospice Medical Director she is a very popular pottery instructor at the Sedona Arts Center. Dr. Williams is also the founder of the non-profit organization Humanitarian Efforts Reaching Out (HERO). HERO works to bring together medical, dental and educational professionals to provide care to underserved populations around the world. Under her leadership, HERO has helped provide support to many nations, including Tibetan Refugees in India in 2010 and 2011 and five trips to Honduras from 2007 to 2012. Dr. Williams’s next HERO outreach will be to Jiquilillo in Nicaragua in 2013.
Marvin L. Colvin, D.O., is one of our Associate Medical Directors and he has been with Verde Valley Community Hospice since 2009. Although he is a native of Arizona, Dr. Colvin is a 1988 graduate of the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific (now known as Western University of Health Sciences) in Pomona, CA. Dr. Colvin moved to Cottonwood in 1977 to help with the family business while earning his prerequisites for medical school. He then completed his degree in osteopathic medicine followed by a residency in family medicine. He returned to Cottonwood in 1991 before purchasing and remodeling the original Cottonwood Hospital in Old Town in 1994 where he established The Family Medical Center where he continues to serve the Verde Valley community. Also within his facility he established the Healing Arts Center that is a community of like-minded providers dedicated to complimentary health and healing professionals. He summarizes this; “I believe there are special opportunities for healing throughout a person’s life, including during the dying process. I feel honored to be part of a hospice team that is dedicated to providing services that give the individual and family the opportunities for healing and blessings that come from a well-supported end-of-life experience.” As long as he has been a physician, Dr. Colvin has always remained involved with his patients when hospice services were the most appropriate care. He regards hospice as a continuation of the spectrum of care that people deserve through the course of their lives. He accepted the role as Medical Director of a community based hospice as an opportunity to promote more people receiving the special care that hospice can provide.
S. Zelda Wilkinson, M.D., is one of our Associate Medical Directors. She is a 1978 graduate of the University of Arizona in Tucson and brings to Verde Valley Community Hospice a wealth of knowledge with over 30 years of medical practice. She is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine, as well as, being on staff at the Verde Valley Medical Center in Cottonwood. She also has her own internal medicine clinic, the Cottonwood Internal Medicine Group that serves the community throughout the Verde Valley. Among her many talents as a physician, Dr. Wilkinson also speaks French.