Dr. Counts' clinic serves 4,000 patients in the Appalachian Region of Southwestern Pennsylvania and Northern West Virginia. Her career of caring has spanned the globe.

The clinic has been open to all since 1994. For 30 years, Dr. Counts has been engaged in volunteer and professional health care. She second-mortgaged her home to open a clinic intended to serve the isolated, undereducated, underemployed, underinsured, very young, very old, and very poor. She has dedicated her life not to her own fortunes but lovingly to the care of her patients. Answering calls in the dead of night, driving mountain roads through blinding snowstorms to care for the afflicted, she sometimes is paid in zucchini – or not at all.

Dr. Counts' work is her life. She is always "on call," with a singular ability not only to help her patients get well, but also to inspire them to work toward their own dreams.

This amazing work extending health care to the rural poor can only be called ground-breaking. Perhaps the greatest gift that Dr. Counts gives to the community is this – her bold, refreshing worldview. She refuses to believe that the rural poor must lead impoverished lives. She makes a difference in the health of 4,000 of them. A revered mentor, she teaches and inspires others to do likewise.

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