Our Story

CIHC was founded by Denise J. Hanson, Psy.D., Licensed Psychologist, and Russell H. Gerry, M.D., Board Certified General Internist. After visiting Wilmington, North Carolina for many years, they found it to be a truly unique city because of its location, beauty, resources, and most of all, its people. They decided to leave their group practices in the Boston area and move to Wilmington in 1999. They wanted to develop a group practice based on an integrated model of health care, recognizing that physical health and emotional health cannot be separated. The Mind-Body Connection has long been accepted, but mind and body are still treated separately in most health care practices. The Center for Integrated Health Care is based on the premise that one truly affects the other, and therefore, need to be treated as an integrated entity. CIHC is proud to have delivered this health care model to the Wilmington community since March 2000, and has grown tremendously as a result of the positive responses from the people served.

Our Core Values

Community: CIHC believes that the community, which encompasses all individuals, should drive the development and delivery of its health care services. We actively strive to understand our community to determine its needs, and then develop and deliver services that effectively and efficiently meet those needs. 

Professionalism: CIHC consistently strives for quality and excellence. We are all well-trained, licensed professionals who continue to expand our knowledge base to keep up with new theories, research, technologies and treatments. We are constantly in the process of updating our professional knowledge for our patients, and believe it is our responsibility, not just our job to provide superior health care services, every day, for every patient. 

Integrity: Integrity is the cornerstone of our value system. It guides our work. It encompasses the values of honesty, loyalty, fairness, respect, courage and responsibility to do what is right for our patients at all times. CIHC lives by a code of ethics that is rare today ... a code that is based on outstanding morals and values. Our patients' needs are always our priority. Our patients are always the center of our day-to-day life here at CIHC. 

Relationships: Relationships are connections between people. And at CIHC, the Doctor-Patient relationship is paramount to our collaborative effort toward health and well being. We respect each patient's rights, needs and values so that trust, the foundation of relationships, develops and grows.