Flippen providing a big legacy for small-town medicine

D. Jay Flippen, now of Pelahatchie, in Rankin County, knows a lot about life in small towns, especially when it comes to access to the healthcare small-town residents need. The D. Jay Flippen Endowed Scholarship secures a legacy that will allow future Mississippi State University students to learn, then return to their home communities to help residents receive the care they need.

Flippen’s parents were in the military, and his early years passed first in Allegany County, New York, then in Carroll County, Mississippi. Rural spaces, tiny towns and a community-oriented way of life formed the background of his youth. He attended and played football at J.Z. George High School in North Carrollton, and he came to love the way the community lived. The pace of life was a preference its residents had chosen—one farther from metropolitan bustle but closer to one another. North Carrollton is the kind of place where everyone knows a kid at the high school’s football stadium where the grill smoke drifts upward into fall’s Friday night lights.

“Community involvement means more when you actually know the people in your community,” Flippen said. “I grew up 30 miles from the closest real grocery store, but knowing our neighbors well seemed like a good trade.”

Preserving the opportunity to thrive in communities where the neighbors know one another is the goal of his gift. As a high schooler, a knee injury introduced Flippen to the growing world of medicine. While he watched medical technologists perform an arthrogram on his damaged joint, he grew interested in the science and the service the work involved. He attended Mississippi State University and then pursued his studies at the University of Mississippi Medical Center where he completed programs in radiologic and nuclear medicine technology, all while working in those fields at UMMC. Throughout a long career, he earned hours in continuing education every year for his necessary licenses through programs of study at UMMC as well as at the University of Southern California, University of California, Los Angeles, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and more. Ultimately, Flippen served as a nuclear medicine technologist and radiologic technologist, advancing to radiology director. He became part of the first cohort at UMMC to achieve certification in nuclear cardiology technology and worked in that field for nearly 20 years.

He is now passing forward a gift to the new generations of students who’ll be able to study kinesiology with concentrations in clinical exercise physiology, neuromechanics or strength and conditioning at Mississippi State.

“A background in that would get a student into anything they’d want to do in the medical field,” Flippen said. “That would get them into the nursing or the physician assistant program MSU-Meridian is offering. A lot of the courses I took while traveling the country are available now on campus at MSU-Meridian or Starkville today.”

Rural medical providers across the country also need employees with certified technical proficiency, as do home healthcare specialists.

“I would love to have been able to work in home healthcare, but the opportunities weren’t there at the time my career was beginning,” he said. “For someone who wants to go to school and then come back home, make a good living and help people, this scholarship could be the key.”

Flippen’s scholarship gives first preference to high school students from Carroll, Grenada and Montgomery County schools.

“Those schools have great students, and many also have great needs,” he said. “I’m hoping to help someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to go to college, someone who maybe didn’t have quite the grades to get the extent of financial aid they need. I hope its recipients will be successful and, later, do the same thing for others.”

Small towns are a large part of what makes Mississippi a special place. In many cases, residents trade convenience for community and delight in the result. Having reasonable access to healthcare is aided by community members who build careers in medicine practiced in each patient’s home. Flippen’s gift will expand access to careers for deserving students, allowing them to contribute vital services in the communities they love. It creates a legacy that will help small towns thrive in a big way.