Dr. Melanie Jones has joined Hope’s Cabun Rural Health Services clinic, adding to her record of bringing her medical skills to places where there is great need.

During her career prior to coming to Hope, Jones has treated patients in prisons and in refugee camps in Warsaw for Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. She had plans to help earthquake victims in Turkey when the job in Hope came open, allowing her to come back to where she grew up in southwest Arkansas.

But Jones says she will continue mission work abroad: “That is something that I have been doing and will continue to do.  It just opens your eyes to people that are in [the kind of] need that we can't possibly comprehend.”

She says her interest in medicine began from growing up in Prescott in a household around two people in the medical field. “My mother's a nurse. My sister's a nurse. So I guess that's always been something I was exposed to, just something that interested me, and then I felt like I would be able to contribute.”

After college, she was admitted to University of Arkansas for Medical Science, graduating and then practicing in Little Rock and, later, Arkadelphia. She arrives in Hope at a time of need for more doctors but also for treatment for conditions that are becoming more prevalent in our area. “Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease--unfortunately,  they do seem to be a bigger problem in the southern states. I don't know if that's our or our way of eating or lifestyle or maybe a combination of both … They're too easy to treat to just let them get as as severe I think as we see them down here,” Jones said.

At Cabun Rural Health Services, which threw a welcome and open house for Jones on the afternoon of June 20th, Jones said she can practice the kind of medicine that is more centered on the patient. “It's geared very much to getting to know the patient, being able to talk to them to understand their problems, and then being able to treat them.”

Cabun’s website lists eight locations, including two in Hope, including the Hope Family Practice Center at 820 South Main and the Hope Bobcat Clinic on 200 East 18th Street on the Hope High Campus. According to its website, it takes “Medicare, Medicaid, most major insurance plans, cash, checks, Visa, and MasterCard.” In the event of co-pays or patients paying out of pocket, the costs are charged on a sliding scale.