Great Barrington — In talking with The Berkshire Edge about his career history, newly hired Community Health Programs (CHP) Chief Medical Officer John-Paul Bettencourt recalled when he first became interested in the field of medicine.
“It was when I was a kid at the YawGoog Boy Scout reservation in Rhode Island,” Bettencourt said. “I still remember when I earned my Boy Scout First Aid Merit Badge. I can clearly still remember that day, and I was thinking, ‘Hey, this is really cool! You can save somebody’s life by stopping their bleeding.’ Earning that merit badge made a substantial impact, and that is when the seed was planted for me to go into the medical field.”
In late January, CHP announced the hiring of Bettencourt as the organization’s Chief Medical Officer.
CHP, which is based out of Great Barrington, offers numerous health services and programs, including services offered through a sliding-fee discount program; mobile health clinics; and services offered in the Great Barrington Community Health Center, Lee Family Practice, Pittsfield Neighborhood Health Center, North Adams Family Medical and Dental, and other various pediatric and dental services in locations throughout Berkshire County.
“From there, I got my EMT license, and that was really cool for me,” Bettencourt continued. “I eventually became an EMT instructor, and I was on multiple volunteer squads while I was in college. I felt that it’s cool that I can help people and save their lives by getting into medicine.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Bettencourt most recently served as the chief medical officer at the McGregor Clinic, an HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment clinic in Fort Myers, Fla., from October 2022 until October 2025. He previously worked at Fenway Community Health in Boston as a physician from September 2015 to August 2018, then as the organization’s lead physician from September 2018 to August 2022. He concurrently served as an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School from July 2016 to August 2022.
Bettencourt grew up in Rhode Island and graduated from Scituate High School in Scituate, R.I., in 1997. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology and a minor in chemistry from the University of Vermont in 2001; a Master of Public Health degree from A.T. Still University in Kirksville, Mo., in 2007; a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from the University of New England in 2012; and a Master of Business Administration in healthcare management from Western Governors University in Salt Lake City, Utah, in May 2022.
“When I graduated from the University of Vermont, I was just a typical pre-med student until one of my professors came up to me and asked what I was doing for the summer,” Bettencourt told The Edge. “My professor told me that UMass Medical wanted me to join them to go to Africa to do HIV research because if somebody gets hurt, they will have a medic who can help them. So I called my parents up and said, ‘Hey, mom! Hey, dad! I’ll see you in six months because I’m going to Africa!’” He added, “My experiences in Africa were absolutely amazing because they really opened my eyes up and it just fascinated me.”
Bettencourt has also worked as an emergency management specialist for the the state of Vermont’s Department of Public Safety from June 1999 to May 2006; a volunteer, driver, and trainer at the Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue Services in Charlotte, Vt.; a clinical instructor at the University of Vermont’s College of Medicine in Burlington, Vt., from December 2001 to May 2009; and a member of the town of Shelburne, Vt., Rescue Department from 1998 to 2001.
“I wanted to move to the Berkshires [from Florida] because I’m a northerner,” Bettencourt explained of his recent move. “The heat was getting to me in Florida, and I wanted to move back to New England. When I interviewed for the chief medical officer position here at CHP, I discovered a great group of people who concentrate on good patient care. That’s what drove me to work for CHP, because I’m not interested in working for a healthcare organization that looks primarily at dollar signs. I got into medicine not because of dollars, but because I really want to help people, and that’s what CHP does. This organization is made up of good people who are looking at the patient as a person, and not a dollar sign. We all hear complaints about health insurance companies who do automatic denials because of money. That doesn’t happen here at CHP. Here, the discussions are all about how we help people.”
According to CHP Vice President of Innovation, Technology, and Communications Amy Lisewski, an estimated 30,000 patients were seen at CHP’s medical sites last year, which include its medical, behavioral health, and dental offices.
“To me, there is always a need for medical services,” Bettencourt said. “When you open up a newspaper, you will see that health topics are always the number one thing when it comes to articles. Then there is a synergy of health topics and the finances of health when it comes to people being able to afford the medicine that they need. We have chronic diseases that are running rampant, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. They have been around for a very long time and continue to be a problem, and that is part of the reason why there will always be a need for the health services CHP provides to residents.”
Bettencourt said a major challenge facing Berkshire County and the country right now is a lack of primary care providers. “We know that preventative medicine is cost-effective,” he said. “But the problem we have is it’s not flashy for new graduates from universities. Getting new graduates into preventative medicine has been difficult for decades. Berkshire County is not a major city, and we don’t have the nightlife of New York City, Boston, or Chicago. What we do have in the Berkshires is a beautiful area and a great team to work with. When it comes to treatment, CHP patients get the same level of care that they would from anywhere else in the country.”
For more information about CHP, visit its website.
