MAHEC (Mountain Area Health Education Center)

Mission: To provide and support educational activities and services with a focus on primary care in rural communities and those with less access to resources to recruit, train, and retain the workforce needed to create a healthy North Carolina.

Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) was established in 1974 to improve training and retention of healthcare professionals across Western North Carolina (WNC). We are dedicated to excellence in clinical care, health professions education, and innovative practices that can be replicated nationally.

Located in Asheville, MAHEC serves North Carolina’s 16 westernmost counties. We are the largest of the nine state AHECs that address national and state concerns with the supply, retention, and quality of health professionals especially in rural areas of the state.

MAHEC provides quality, compassionate family medicine, ob/gyn, and dental care through more than 170,000 annual patient visits that include WNC’s newest residents, the more than 2,300 babies delivered by our ob/gyn, maternal-fetal medicine, and family medicine physicians and nurse-midwives. In addition, our sports medicine, behavioral health, pharmacotherapy, and nutrition services lend support to an advanced care team model where providers work together to support the whole person.

At MAHEC, we train physicians and dentists to provide evidence-based patient-centered healthcare. Our UNC-appointed faculty physicians and dentists are dedicated mentors, community health advocates, and compassionate physicians.