A lasting legacy: Dr. Shelton named winner of 2025 Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award
By Staff Report, posted Nov 10, 2025 on BizFayetteville.com
Dr. Stuart Shelton, a renowned maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Cape Fear Valley Perinatology, has dedicated more than 20 years to providing exceptional high-risk obstetric care, touching the lives of multiple generations of patients.
Shelton originally joined Cape Fear Valley Health in 2002 after a military career. With a lot of his patients connected to the military, Dr. Shelton brought a unique perspective from his own background, having served in the Army and worked at Fort Hood and Fort Bragg before settling in Fayetteville.
Shelton played a pivotal role in establishing the hospital’s perinatology clinic in December 2006. The clinic, located at 2109 Valleygate Dr. in Fayetteville, was a significant milestone, providing local high-risk obstetric care and eliminating the need for patients to travel long distances to Duke or UNC for specialized treatment.
“When I set up the practice here in 2006, my office manager and some other folks went around and looked for locations for us to put up the practice. And so we ended up over at One Village Plaza and we actually had a blank slate. We walked into what would be our office, and there was just concrete walls and a dirt floor,” recalled Shelton. “That was nice, we did sit down with an architect and drew up how we wanted the clinic layout.”
Since establishing the specialized clinic, Shelton has been known for his extraordinary commitment to patient care. Colleagues describe him as uniquely compassionate, often providing personal contact information to patients and even taking time to pray for those facing challenging medical situations. With over 20 years practicing in the community, Shelton shared that one of the most special parts of his job was the multi-generational care he was able to provide to his patients.
I got to see some patients for multiple pregnancies. When in the military, I was only at Fort Hood for two years and Fort Bragg for one and so I didn’t get to see patients come back for second and third and fourth pregnancies. Here, I was able to take care of patients for several pregnancies and by the end of my career, I had some patients that were the fetus that I was taking care of when their mother was pregnant. So that was kind of interesting, when they would come and go, ‘Oh, you saw my mom when she was pregnant with me, and now I’m pregnant!’ That was kind of neat,” shared Shelton.
A longtime ultrasound technician who worked closely with Shelton shared that his approach goes beyond medical expertise. He consistently demonstrates deep care for patients, follows up on their treatments and takes time to educate medical residents through detailed presentations and hands-on training.
His career has been marked by a commitment to excellence, instilled by his parents’ teachings of doing everything to the best of one's ability. Perhaps most telling of his character are the personal stories - like donating paid time off to support staff and maintaining long-term relationships with families, sometimes scanning multiple generations of the same family.
“I’m very thankful that the Lord brought me here to Fayetteville. I’m a believer, and so I believe that he's guided my path and all the places I've been to, and I think there was a reason that I came here to Fayetteville. I'm very happy with the folks that I’ve been able to work with. We’ve had great staff here and great support from the administration, we've been able to build a practice that didn’t exist into a large practice that could serve the community. We’ve taught a lot of students and residents over the years, so there’s a lot of things that I look back on that I’m very happy to have been a part of, but it’s not just me. There’s been a lot of people involved in this process,” shared Shelton.
Since his retirement, the clinic brought on two new physicians, including one from Fort Bragg with a military background, who were recruited to continue his exceptional standard of care.
The Greater Fayetteville Business Journal is proud to present the 2025 Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr. Stuart Shelton, as a commemoration of the excellent health care service he’s provided to the greater Fayetteville area.
“That was a surprise, I didn't know that I was nominated, let alone had won the award. I was very honored and humbled. I will say, when I heard it was a lifetime achievement award, I thought, ‘I’m not that old! How’d I get a lifetime award,’ shared Shelton. “But I really enjoyed what I did, and I enjoyed the people I worked with. I had great people over the years, from the military to the folks at Duke to here at Cape Fear [Valley Health]. We had a very good group [of office staff] to work with, and it just made coming in and taking care of our patients a big pleasure.
Shelton’s retirement marked the end of an era, but his impact on maternal-fetal medicine in the region will undoubtedly continue through the physicians he has mentored and the patients he has served.
“I just want to reinforce that this is not all about me. There were a lot of folks that helped make our practice very successful, and most of all, I praise the Lord for giving me the ability to do what I did,” concluded Shelton.
The Greater Fayetteville Business Journal is proud to award Dr. Stuart Shelton with the third ever Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award.
Editor's note: This article was co-written by Stephanie Meador and Faith Hatton. Portions first appeared in a featured Insight that was published on June 30, 2025. Additions and quotes from Dr. Shelton were added into a new article for Health Care Heroes.
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