People of the U: Dr. Ben Lambert
Published on Monday, December 6, 2021
By: Ruth Cummins
Editor's Note: Front and Center is part of an ongoing series featuring UMMC's faculty, staff and students. See more Front and Center features.
Grenada is the “new” home of Dr. Ben Lambert and his family, but his “old” home is just down the road.
“I grew up in the country between Sardis and Como,” said Lambert, who recently joined the family medicine team at the University of Mississippi Medical Center Grenada. “I went to school in Senatobia, from elementary school through high school graduation.”
Lambert, his wife Whitney and son Grayson are settling in after their recent move from Tupelo, where he performed a family medicine residency at North Mississippi Medical Center following his 2018 graduation from the School of Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Lambert is seeing patients at the Family Medicine Clinic, 1300 Sunset Drive, Suite F. He interviewed to join UMMC Grenada’s Family Medicine team with Dodie McElmurray, chief executive officer of both UMMC Grenada and UMMC Holmes County in Lexington.
“I felt comfortable, and I felt welcome,” Lambert said.
“Dr. Lambert is a valuable addition to our already strong primary care provider team,” McElmurray said. “Strengthening the team gives residents in Grenada and the surrounding region even more community based care as we strive to create the healthiest Mississippi that we can.”
Lambert’s patients include adults of all ages, and he also sees children for acute care or sick visits. “In adults, I manage a lot of chronic conditions such as diabetes, high cholesterol and hypertension,” he said.
Lambert said family medicine is his calling because he wants to serve patients in their own communities. “Everyone needs a primary care provider to coordinate their care and to understand what specialists are needed for additional treatment,” he said. “It’s my job to translate and relate the information back to the patient.
“I want my patients to have someone local that they can go to, and not necessarily have to drive to Jackson. If they need preventive care such as a colonoscopy or a mammogram, I can order that for them and schedule it.”
His office also administers vaccines for flu and pneumonia, with UMMC’s vaccine clinic for COVID-19 immunizations located just down the hall.
He and his family love to travel, and Lambert comes by it naturally. “My dad’s hobby is to travel, and some of that has been handed down to me. I’ve been on mission trips to China and the Dominican Republic,” Lambert said.
“I’ve traveled to multiple places – Canada, Mexico, Australia, Scotland, Ireland, France, Great Britain and Belgium.”
But, there’s no place like home.
“The location was one of the reasons we chose Grenada,” said Lambert, a graduate of Northwest Mississippi Community College and Delta State University. “My wife’s family is in Cleveland and mine is in Como, so it’s a great midpoint for us to travel to both families.”
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