As Roger Fox retires, new doctors join Mountain Valley Health Center

For nearly half a century, Dr. Roger Fox has been an inimitable fixture at the Mountain Valley Health Center in Londonderry.

Fox, who grew up in England and South Africa, and received his medical training in London and Boston, took a chance on settling in rural Vermont where the community recognized the need for more convenient access to high quality, affordable medical care. Not only did he help establish the Mountain Valley Health Center, but he continued to grow and nurture it with the same dedication and care that he has shown to patients and the community. Earlier this month  Fox retired from his position as the practice’s senior clinician.

Fox’s reassuring “country doctor” presence was somewhat of a legend in the greater Londonderry region, where his approach to medicine was a mixture of skilled care and down-home kindness. With such big shoes to fill, North Star Health (formerly Springfield Medical Care Systems) has worked diligently to hire new physicians at MVHC to ensure seamless continuity of care for patients.

In June 2021, Meghan Ward, MD, joined the Mountain Valley team and has been working closely with Fox on transitioning patients. Dr. Ward, a native Vermonter, specializes in family medicine and came to North Star from Renown Health in Nevada, where she was the division chief of primary care. She completed her residency in family medicine at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine and continued there as an assistant professor of clinical family medicine.

Rachel E. Bruce, MD will join the primary care practice at Mountain Valley Health Center in September.

Dr. Bruce has extensive experience providing medical care to patients in hospital, long-term skilled nursing, and short-term rehabilitation settings in Vermont and Massachusetts, and comes to MVHC from Community Health in Rutland,  where she was Medical Director of Nursing Home Services. Prior to that, she  practiced inpatient care as a hospitalist physician at Rutland Regional Medical Center, specializing in internal medicine, geriatrics, pulmonology and end-of-life care.

Bruce will assume care for many of the patients who have received primary care from Dr. Fox, as well as Dr. Sandra Hoyte, who retired earlier this year. She will partner with Dr. Ward and nurse practitioners Aimee Searles and Karen Nardella to support MVHC clinical staff.

Dr. Bruce received her Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College in New York City and her Doctor of Medicine from State University of New York College of Medicine in Brooklyn. Dr. Bruce completed an internal medicine residency at Saint Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center in New York City and a fellowship in pulmonary medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She is board certified in internal medicine.

Finally, Moss J. Linder, MD, has been providing primary care for MVHC patients three days a week since May. Dr. Linder may be a familiar face to patients, as he has practiced primary, emergency and inpatient medicine at Grace Cottage Family Health and Hospital in Townshend since 1997.

Dr. Linder will continue to provide care into early fall when Bruce is scheduled to join the practice. Dr. Linder earned his Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., and a Master of Science from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He received his medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine and completed a family medicine residency at Oregon Health Services University in Portland.