DR. TERRY FIDDLER, SUZANNE McCARTHY HONORED WITH DR. TOM BRUCE ARKANSAS HEALTH IMPACT AWARD

LITTLE ROCK ― The board of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement on Tuesday honored Dr. Terry Fiddler and the late Suzanne McCarthy with the Dr. Tom Bruce Arkansas Health Impact Award. The annual award recognizes individuals who have had outstanding impacts on the health of Arkansans.

For the past 20 years, Fiddler has been a driving force behind Arkansas Mission of Mercy, which holds annual clinics to provide free dental care to underserved Arkansans. Since 2013, Fiddler has been executive director of the organization, which has delivered $25 million in dental services to nearly 30,000 patients.

A native of Conway, Fiddler graduated from the University of Central Arkansas in 1970 and obtained his doctor of dental surgery degree from the University of Tennessee in 1973. He was a practicing dentist in Conway for 43 years before retiring in 2016. He has served on the UCA Foundation Board, the UCA Board of Trustees and the Board of Trustees of the American Dental Association. Fiddler has also served as president of the Arkansas State Dental Association, the Conway School Board and the Kiwanis Club of Conway. He has received the highest award the Arkansas State Dental Association gives, the Distinguished Service Award.

“Dr. Terry Fiddler’s commitment to serving the underserved has improved the health of tens of thousands of Arkansans who would otherwise have gone untreated. On behalf of our board, I am proud to present Dr. Fiddler with the 2026 Dr. Tom Bruce Arkansas Health Impact Award for his extraordinary impact on our state,” said ACHI President and CEO Craig Wilson, who announced the awards Tuesday during the annual Friends of ACHI Appreciation Event at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock.

McCarthy co-founded ACHI in 1998 and served as the center’s founding senior associate and director of government relations until her retirement in 2019. Though disinclined to take public credit for her accomplishments, McCarthy’s vision and leadership were key to many of the advances Arkansas made in public health over the past three decades.

A New York native, McCarthy earned a bachelor’s degree from Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, a master’s degree in nursing from Boston University and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences — where she was the first student to enroll in the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health upon its opening in 2001. She worked in clinical, consulting or teaching positions at hospitals in New York, Massachusetts and England before coming to Arkansas, where she served in positions at Doctors Hospital in Little Rock, the YMCA, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Healthsource Arkansas, and UAMS. She died late last year in Louisville, Ky.

“Suzanne McCarthy’s loss is deeply felt by those of us who had the pleasure to work with her and benefit from her mentorship,” Wilson said. “She was a guiding light at ACHI and a life coach for many of us. It’s an honor to announce that our board has chosen to recognize her posthumously with the 2026 Dr. Tom Bruce Arkansas Health Impact Award.”

Bruce, dean of the UAMS College of Medicine for more than a decade and a pioneer in the field of community-based public health, was a national leader in community health and a champion of rural health and health system improvement in Arkansas. The award named for Bruce recognizes individuals who embody his lifetime of service by demonstrating courageous leadership, serving as catalysts for improving the health of all Arkansans, and exemplifying the core values of ACHI: trust, commitment, innovation and initiative.

ACHI is a nonpartisan, independent health policy center that serves as a catalyst for improving the health of all Arkansans through evidence-based research, analysis, and collaborative program development.