Meet our Honoree!!!!!
Joseph Bell, MD (Lumbee) is the son of Sarah Sampson Bell and the late James (Buddy) Bell and grandson of the late Furman and Maggie Bell and the late Stanley and Eunice Sampson. Dr. Bell is the brother of Judge James Gregory Bell and Dr. Ronny A. Bell. He grew up in Pembroke and graduated from Pembroke Senior High School in 1977. He then went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and became the first Lumbee to play on the UNC Junior Varsity basketball team. As an undergraduate, he served as President of the Carolina Indian Circle. Dr. Bell graduated from the UNC School of Pharmacy and the UNC School of Medicine in 1986.
After finishing his Pediatric residency at Moses Cone Hospital in Greensboro, he became the first Lumbee Pediatrician and the first Native American Pediatrician in North Carolina. He worked at Carl Albert Indian Hospital and Choctaw Nation Indian Hospital in Oklahoma for four years. He returned to Robeson County and worked for Robeson Health Care Corporation as a Pediatrician and Medical Director. Dr. Bell also worked as a contract Pediatrician on the Catawba Indian Reservation for 24 years. He helped open Pembroke Pediatrics, a clinic of Children's Health of Carolina, in 1998. He served as medical director for 23 years. Presently, he works as a staff Pediatrician at Children's Health Pembroke (formerly Pembroke Pediatrics) and managing partner for Children's Health of Carolina.
Dr. Bell has served on the North Carolina Pediatric Society's Executive Board. He is a member and past President of the Association of American Indian Physicians (MIP), founding board member of the North Carolina American Indian Health Board and the
AAIP Liaison to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Native American Child Health (CONACH).
His awards include the AAIP Indian Physician of the Year Award, the AAP Native American Child Advocacy Award, the Physician Assistant Educational Association's Teacher of the Year Award, and the North Carolina Pediatric Society's Dave Tayloe Sr. Award.
He has been married to Vicki Bell for the past 34 years. They have two children: Tori Alvarado (husband David) and Isaac Bell (wife Peyton) and three grandchildren, Elena, Luca and Rosa.
