Dear Medical College of Georgia Friends,

Class of 2025 celebrated a successful Match Day today

I want to start today by expressing my sincere congratulations to the Class of 2025 on a successful Match Day. It’s always special to be there to celebrate your accomplishments on this momentous and memorable day.

True to MCG’s usual, this year’s Match statistics further demonstrate the exceptional quality of the students we are privileged to teach here. Today 246 of our students – 198 from our main campus in Augusta and 48 from the AU/UGA Medical Partnership Campus in Athens – found out where they’ll take their next steps toward becoming a physician. 98% of MCG’s soon-to-be graduates earned a residency position at top-tier training programs across the country, including programs at MCG. Students matched in 29 states and 30 specialties. 24% of our students will stay in Georgia for their first year of residency; of those, 22 will stay at Wellstar MCG Health or other MCG-affiliated residency programs. 57% of the Class of 2025 matched in primary care and this class includes nine Peach State Scholars.

I cannot wait to hear more about how well you all represent MCG when you go on to your respective training programs. MCG graduates have a long-standing tradition of being some of the best prepared in the country, and I routinely hear that from residency program directors across the country.

I have to thank here our incredible Academic Affairs team, who have guided this class not only through the Match process, but through all of their years at MCG. Class of 2025, please know that your medical school is incredibly proud of you!

Belltower Foundation, student-led initiative, awards $8,000 in grants to community projects

While we’re on the subject of the amazing caliber of learners we have at MCG, I wanted to share another neat effort that was started by a group of our medical students and now includes students from across Augusta University. It’s called the Belltower Student Foundation, which aims to strengthen the sense of community here through philanthropy, civic engagement and volunteerism. In addition to doing service projects with community partners like the Golden Harvest Food Bank, Augusta Locally Grown and the Ronald McDonald House, and offering financial literacy training workshops, the group also manages a $500,000 endowment from the MCG Foundation. With that investment, this year they aimed to award five $1,000 Augusta Impact Grants to community groups but found the pitches for those awards – all done by students – so compelling that they ended up awarding eight instead. These grants will fund a variety of efforts including screenings at free and low-cost clinics for men, women and children in our area, hands-on STEM projects for local elementary school students, art therapy for patients at the Children’s Hospital of Georgia and a graduate student grief support group. They are also working to invest the foundation’s funding so that they can continue to fund similar efforts well into the future. Belltower Foundation Chair, fourth-year student, and future dermatologist (she matched today!) McKenzie Maloney tells me that the group began as a way for students to address the gaps in care they often saw in the patients they were helping treat. I’d say they’re doing just that. My thanks to these amazing students and to our foundation for leading such an important effort.

Georgia Research Alliance visits campus

Another group that provides significant investments to support MCG is the Georgia Research Alliance. The GRA exists to expand university research, entrepreneurship and economic growth across the state, and their partnership helps us recruit and retain the best and brightest, which is key to the continued growth of our research efforts. Eight of our amazing scientists are GRA Eminent Scholars.

Earlier this week, we were privileged to host members of the GRA in Augusta, including Dr. Tim Denning, president and CEO; Amanda Schroeder, senior vice president for external engagement; Dr. Justin Burns, vice president for innovation and entrepreneurship (who also spoke during a lunch and learn session in our Office of Innovation and Commercialization); Dr. Andrew Short, associate director of innovation; Connor Seabrook, vice president and managing director of the GRA’s Venture Fund; and Evan Alden, director of operations. The GRA does amazing good work for science and entrepreneurship in GA with a total staff of only 7!  It was a packed two days that started with dinner with President and First Lady Keen and our GRA Scholars on Monday. Then Tuesday our visitors had the chance to tour the Georgia Cyber Innovation & Training Center, Georgia Cancer Center, the Vascular Biology Center, and some of our other research spaces in physiology, neuroscience and cellular biology and anatomy. This visit was a great opportunity to show the GRA how their investments are paying dividends and to thank them for their long-time support. Thank you to everyone who pitched in to help show off the incredible work that is going on here.

Dr. Robyn Hatley receives iconic Red Jacket at Moretz Surgical Society annual meeting

Here’s another name that’s synonymous with supporting MCG – Dr. Robyn Hatley. The Leon Henri Charbonnier Endowed Chair in Surgery has been a beloved faculty member and pediatric surgeon here for going on four decades. He’s a well-known and respected leader both here and nationally who has chaired CHOG’s Pediatric Trauma Committee and helped lead the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, program, which has saved the lives of countless critically ill children. We’ve honored him with our Distinguished Faculty Award for Patient Care and Educator of Year Award, and the Department of Surgery has awarded him the Outstanding Faculty Award. In 2022, our graduating class asked Dr. Hatley to be the keynote speaker at their Hooding Ceremony. Now he can add another honor to the list – a prestigious Moretz Red Jacket, which was presented to him at this year’s Moretz Surgical Society meeting that we hosted on our campus recently. The jacket is a long-standing and proud tradition that dates back to 1984 and has been presented to surgeons who have made significant contributions to surgery at MCG. A well-deserved honor, Dr. Hatley. And Dr. Hatley is from New Jersey!

The Moretz Surgical Society takes its name from another MCG legend, Dr. William Moretz, who served as surgery chair from 1955-72 and as the fourth president of MCG (when MCG was the whole university). Their annual meeting is always a lively gathering that has great attendance from residents, faculty, alumni, students and friends of the Department of Surgery. A highlight of this year’s meeting, for me, was judging the “Battle of the Campuses” Student Research Competition, which was won by Luke Guy, a third-year student from our Southwest Campus. Thank you to all who helped organize that and the many informative presentations at this year’s meeting. I believe efforts like these create and cultivate a spirit of lifelong learning in us all.  

Augusta Gives helps raise money for research, Stethoscope Program, student scholarships

Dr. Hatley has always been so giving with his time and devotion to his patients, his profession and to MCG. His generous spirit is inspiring.

Here’s some more examples of generosity and its impact at our medical school. Wednesday was the annual Augusta Gives Day, our university’s annual “day” of giving – well 18 hours and 28 minutes of giving to be exact. This year, for MCG’s part, we asked donors to support student scholarships, our Stethoscope Program, and vision research. The day started bright and early at 5:32 a.m., and as of midnight MCG had received gifts from 75 individuals totaling over $200,000. I must thank here our annual giving team, but also our MCG Foundation Board of Trustees, particularly Ian Mercier, president and CEO, and Board Chair Dr. Charlie Green, an internist and 1974 graduate, who I’m told both led the charge in getting many of our trustees to make gifts and pledges. Thank you all for your continued support.

More than 50 people in attendance at Gainesville alumni reception

We had a great gathering of alumni and friends at our reception at The Boathouse in Gainesville last night. More than 50 people joined us there. It was a great chance to visit with people like 1962 graduate and retired vascular surgeon, Dr. Wiley Black and his wife, Judy, who is also a graduate of the AU College of Nursing; Dr. John Darden, a 1971 alum and retired Gainesville surgeon, and his wife Sally; Dr. Bill Hallowes, a 1991 graduate who also completed his anesthesiology residency with us and practices at Northeast Georgia Medical Center; and Dr. Nancy Stead, a hematologist/oncologist who’s actually a Duke University Medical School graduate. She served on our faculty for eight years so we’ve adopted her as one of ours. I was sorry her husband Dr. Alan Atwood, a 1984 graduate and surgeon, couldn’t join us. I always enjoy meeting with our alums where they live and practice, hearing stories about their time at MCG and learning how this medical school has impacted their lives and the lives of the people they’ve been privileged to serve. Last night was no exception.

My best to you always,

David C. Hess, MD

Dean, Medical College of Georgia

Upcoming Events

April 18 – MCG Faculty Senate Meeting, noon, Natalie and Lansing B. Lee Jr. Auditorium

April 25-27 – Alumni Weekend, https://www.augusta.edu/alumniweekend/

May 8 – MCG Hooding Ceremony, 2pm, James Brown Arena

May 29-31 – MCG Faculty Development Conference, Jekyll Island