Carole Pratt, D.D.S.
Fellowship Year(s): 2011-2012
Profession: Dentist
Specialty: Dentistry
Fellowship Details:
Sen Rockefeller (D-WV)
Virginia
At time of Fellowship
A. Carole Pratt practiced general dentistry in rural southwest Virginia for 32 years, during which time she served four terms as chair of Virginia’s Board of Health, and vice chair of the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services. She is the immediate past chair of the board of trustees at Lewis Gale Hospital at Pulaski, and in 2009, Pratt was a fellow of the National Rural Health Association. She is a member of the Virginia Oral Health Coalition and she has chaired the Southwest Virginia Graduate Medical Education Consortium, which creates and supports medical residency preceptor sites in rural and underserved communities.
Pratt has served as chair of the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance, chair of Virginia’s Small Business Advisory Board, and is currently a member of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Board of Directors. In addition, she has volunteered for eleven years at the annual Virginia Dental Association Mission of Mercy clinics, which have provided 13,597 patients in rural southwest Virginia with $8.1 million of free treatment. In 2007, Pratt was recognized with a professional achievement award by the Women in Science, Medicine, and Dentistry of Virginia Commonwealth University for serving as a role model and mentor for the professional development of women faculty.
Pratt received her D.D.S. from the Medical College of Virginia (Virginia Commonwealth University) School of Dentistry and is a member of the Dean’s Board of Advisors. She received her B.S. in biology from Virginia Tech, where she currently serves as a member of the Biology Department Alumni Advisory Board.
Current Info:
Health Policy Consultant
Self-Employed
Since Fellowship:
Carole Pratt was raised on a family farm in southwest Virginia where the cash crop was Burley tobacco supplemented by beef cattle production. Her summers were spent working in the tobacco field and she attributes her college education to the desire to spend summers in the classroom instead. She attended Virginia Tech and the Medical College of Virginia School of Dentistry, earning her DDS degree as the only woman in a dental school class of 110, one of two women in the entire school. She insists that she didn’t attend dental school to find a husband, but with odds like that she couldn’t help it.
Along with her husband, she practiced general dentistry in Central Appalachia for 32 years and served in leadership roles in a number of professional, civic, and economic development organizations at the regional, state, and national levels.
Pratt was a National Rural Health Association Fellow during passage of the Affordable Care Act and was one of five Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellows in 2011-2012. She worked as a member of the health staff in the personal office of Senator John D. Rockefeller, IV, where her work focused largely on the already raging opioid addiction crisis in West Virginia where the overdose death rate is still among the worst in the nation.
She served as Senior Advisor and Confidential Assistant for Policy in Virginia Governor Northam’s administration from 2018- 2022. Her responsibilities included addiction education, prevention, and treatment; veterans’ health; healthcare workforce; oral health; health and housing; rural health; telehealth and telemedicine; and legislative work.
She was in Virginia Governor McAuliffe’s administration from 2014 through 2018 as Senior Advisor and Confidential Assistant to Virginia’s Secretary of Health and Human Resources and the Commissioner of Health, working primarily on challenges of the addiction and overdose crisis in
the Commonwealth.
Pratt is passionate about rural and underserved communities, the health and health care of their citizens, and the ability to attract and retain good jobs for these regions. She has volunteered for 21 years at the Missions of Mercy free dental clinics held
in Wise County in the coalfields of Central Appalachia where dental care remains the service most in demand. These clinics have treated over 68,000 dental patients and provided more than $47.3 million dollars of donated care. She is convinced that these clinics are the best opportunity for elected officials and policy makers to learn about situations that force people to sleep in their cars and wait in long lines to receive basic health care.
Pratt freely invites anyone who wants to see first-hand what poor access to health care looks like in this country to attend, while observing appropriate COVID-19 protocols. A life-changing experience is guaranteed.
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