Dental care is by far the busiest section of the Remote Area Medical clinic. Photo by Stacy Kranitz.
Last year I teamed up with photographer Stacy Kranitz and several other writers from the region to do a series on Appalachia for VICE focusing on the effects of the declining coal industry, the struggle against strip mining, the drug epidemic, the history and meaning of terms like redneck and hillbilly, and systemic problems with health care. The pieces just went live, including my piece on Remote Area Medical’s yearly mountaintop mash unit in southwest Virginia.
It is impossible to avoid the irony of the truck advertising Mountain Dew parked next to the clinic’s dental tent. Photo by Stacy Kranitz.