Shannon has spent over 20 years supporting the health and well-being of families across our state. After training as a family doctor at MAHEC in Asheville, she has remained in WNC since that time. Having grown up traveling up "yawny mountain" for family visits, when she and her high school sweetheart, Jared, launched their boys to college, they made the move to Madison County.

Shannon's grandmother, Jamie Barrett Brown,  and great-grandfather, James Festus Barrett, were born in Madison County and returning to her rural roots was a natural decision. Now living in Big Laurel, her sister and family relocated shortly later and re-opened the much beloved Little Creek Cafe off Exit 3 on I-26, where you can find Shannon waiting tables when they are short staffed. Shannon and Jared have 6 goats, 13 chickens, 2 rescue dogs and 1 barn cat. 

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Shannon's career has been varied with one consistent theme: a commitment of taking care of everyone regardless of their ability to pay. From being a physician leader in a federally qualified health center(FQHC) opening sites in rural mountain counties to being an executive leader at Mission focused on quality improvement across 6 regional hospitals, Dr. Dowler has worked in and around rural NC for over two decades.

Shortly after the sale of Mission to HCA, Dr. Dowler decided to shift her energy into being a leader at NC Medicaid in NC Department of Health and Human Services, commuting across the state for five years. She led testing and vaccine initiatives focused on reaching underserved populations in the COVID pandemic, modernized telehealth policy for nearly 3 million medicaid members, and was a key leader in the medicaid expansion work.

After leaving the state she began working from her Big Laurel home as a Health Policy Consultant and currently has contracts at the federal, state and regional levels. She has always maintained clinical time and currently sees people living with HIV at a regional FQHC and volunteers at the ABCCM free clinic.  

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Locally, Dr. Dowler has enjoyed being a member on the Madison County Board of Health as well as several other community organizations such as the Literacy Together and the Madison County Racial Justice Coalition.  She and Jared have raised two (pretty amazing) boys, one a trauma nurse and avid whitewater kayaker at UT Knoxville and the other a third year law student at UNC Chapel Hill.