Welcome to Carolinas Rehabilitation, home of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Carolinas Medical Center/Wake Forest School of Medicine. This year is filled with more exciting changes! Earlier this year, we opened our new Carolinas Rehabilitation facility of Charlotte in January 2023. In addition, we added another post graduate program in Spinal Cord Injury Medicine. Our department now offers fellowships in Traumatic Brain Injury Medicine, Cancer Rehabilitation and Spinal Cord Injury Medicine.

As the Residency Program Director, I look to continue the long-standing tradition of clinical, academic and research excellence! The program continues to be dedicated to training highly qualified, caring clinicians, as well as future leaders in the field of PM&R. We will continue to foster close faculty and resident relationships and create a supportive learning environment to promote the development of confidence, autonomy and compassion in our resident physicians.

Our PM&R department’s goal is to provide you with the clinical and educational environments you need to achieve your future career goals. We provide a strong mix of inpatient and outpatient rotations to give you a broad base of experiences within the diversity of our field. In addition, our residency program has created a robust research curriculum and a quality medicine curriculum that has expanded to include our therapy and nursing departments. With exceptional clinical training and research opportunities, our residency program offers individuals the opportunity to cultivate their professional aspirations. Our residents are well-prepared to enter any fellowship program or practice environment and have been very successful in both private practice and academic settings.

The strength and success of our residency program is the result of the motivation and ingenuity of our residents in collaboration with the dedication of our faculty. We are all here to help shape the future leaders of our specialty and have some fun throughout the journey!

Beyond the academic training, our location provides the opportunity for residents and families to enjoy their time outside of the hospital. Charlotte, NC is conveniently nestled between the beach and mountains, making for easy weekend getaways. Charlotte is a southern city that has plenty of charm, great places to eat with award winning food and plenty of unique amenities. These attractions include many local museums, sporting events and an overabundance of outdoor activities including the U.S. National Whitewater Center.

Thank you for your interest in our program and I look forward to meeting with you soon.

Sincerely,

Kelly M. Crawford, MD
Residency Program Director
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Carolinas Rehabilitation/Carolinas Medical Center/Atrium Health
Clinical Assistant Professor, Wake Forest School of Medicine

Message from Associate Program Director

My path to becoming a Physiatrist was rather circuitous. As a college student, I began as a nurse’s assistant on a rehabilitation unit for four summers in my small hometown in Ohio. After college, I taught high school science and mathematics for two years and then attended The Ohio State University for graduate school. After medical school, I was fortunate to find a prestigious PM&R residency program in Charlotte, North Carolina where I learned invaluable lessons about life, medicine and myself. I found a home within PM&R, Carolinas Rehabilitation and in Charlotte with my wife and our three beautiful children.

As a Medical Director and Associate Program Director, my role includes oversight of the Mt. Holly rehabilitation hospital site as well as acting as a liaison between our industrious residents and talented faculty. Some of my key responsibilities include providing daily patient care with a focus on safety and durable outcomes, helping to guide organizational strategy and representing our physician team on an administrative level. Lastly, a highlight of my career and a favorite part of my job is mentoring medical students, residents and junior faculty.

I am very proud of our PM&R team at Carolinas Rehabilitation. As a nationally renowned residency program, Carolinas Rehabilitation provides exceptional, high quality patient care and a distinguished resident educational training program in an appropriately rigorous but collegial atmosphere. The vast diversity and quantity of patient encounters is expansive and offers abundant learning opportunities for medical students, resident physicians and faculty members.

Charlotte, Atrium Health and the superior faculty at Carolinas Rehabilitation afford resident physicians a comprehensive and well-rounded education. As a graduate of this exemplary program, I am proud to say that I am part of an amazing healthcare organization, an empathetic and esteemed faculty and a robust residency program.

Welcome to our home!

Matthew Shall, MD
Associate Program Director