Dear Medical College of Georgia Friends,

Our nation mourns President Jimmy Carter, whose dedication to rural and underserved communities was unmatched

Yesterday, we paused for a National Day of Mourning and the official state funeral of President Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. While his four years as our nation’s 39th president were marked by many pivotal moments, his post-presidential legacy was undoubtedly the profound impact he and his late wife, Rosalynn, made through their humanitarian efforts. They founded The Carter Center, which focuses on public health, democracy and other global issues. They promoted and worked for Habitat for Humanity, even jumping in with their own hammer and nails to build affordable housing for families in need. He championed human rights and worked to eradicate Guinea worm disease, a debilitating parasitic disease that affects some of the world’s poorest people.

President Carter served the world, but his heart was always in his beloved rural hometown of Plains, Georgia, where his father was a peanut farmer and as a child, he lived in a house with no running water or electricity. His humility and those humble roots undoubtedly influenced his passion for improving access to health care for the people rural Georgia. I’m told that, knowing that the world would be watching when his funeral procession began last weekend, President Carter made it a point to ensure that it began at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, where he and Rosalynn had both been patients so many times. He wanted to show all of us a hospital that has grown from its humble beginnings of only eight beds to a state-of-the-art 183,000 square foot facility with 76 beds that is a crucial part of ensuring better health care in that region of the state.  

A group from our Southwest Campus, based in Albany, which is about 45 minutes from Americus and Plains, was privileged to be in attendance to send President Carter off. According to Dr. Doug Patten, the campus’s associate dean, “it was a beautiful, quiet and reverent morning…a fitting sendoff for someone whose amazing life began and ended here in Sumter County.”

MCG first-year student shares President Carter’s commitment to helping those who need it most

President Carter exemplified service above self and was no doubt an inspiration, particularly for a young Yash Jani, who is a member of the MCG Class of 2028. Yash is from Albany and his father, Dr. Chirag Jani is medical director of hematology/oncology and chief of staff for the Cancer Center at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, where President Carter had received treatment. During high school, Yash’s cousin was diagnosed and eventually passed away from Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He channeled his deep grief over his cousin’s death into founding Ray of Hope, which provides grief counseling and other support to children whose parents are in hospice care. Since founding the non-profit, Yash and his friends and supporters have raised over $43,000 and helped hundreds of children and their families across the state of Georgia. Those experiences, Yash says, were instrumental in his decision to pursue a career in medicine and eventually return to an underserved area of the state to practice. Those experiences also gave him the opportunity, in 2020, to sit next to Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter at Maranantha Baptist Church in Plains and tell them about his efforts. What a special story and memory for Yash, who I’m sure made a lasting impression of the former President and First Lady. I’m confident that like the Carters did, Yash will continue to make a difference in the lives of people for many years to come.

MCG’s commitment to improving the health of Georgians, particularly the underserved, is stronger than ever

Our medical school also shares a commitment to improving health care for the communities around our state that need it the most. Part of the way we do that is through our network of regional campuses. You may remember that back in 2006, in an effort to address the physician shortage, the AAMC called for a 30% growth in enrollment among our nation’s medical schools. True to MCG’s usual form, we were already on it and were strategically thinking about how we could educate students in rural and underserved Georgia in hopes they would one day return there to practice. The year before, in 2005, we had requested and received approval from the LCME to establish our Southwest Campus and had hired Dr. Iqbal Khan as founding campus dean. (A little history: Current campus dean, Dr. Patten, was then serving as SVP of Medical Affairs at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, our great teaching partner down that way, and was integral in helping establish that campus).

Our 20-year-old statewide educational network continues to grow

Well, here we are 20 years later, and I’m happy to be able to tell you that our statewide educational network – with campuses in Athens, Albany, Savannah/Brunswick, Rome/Dalton, and now Atlanta – is thriving. Here are just a few examples: The Northwest Campus in Rome just welcomed its largest cohort ever of 12 students. Six more will train just up the interstate in Dalton. Sixteen students began their clinical training at our Southwest Campus this week; and another 17 started at Wellstar Kennestone in Marietta, where we have 50 clinical faculty. We have 12 more clinical faculty and growing at Wellstar Cobb Medical Center. In toto, out of the entire Class of 2027, 151 students are being educated outside of our main campus in Augusta. We are also working, with the great help of Drs. Joseph Hobbs and Ashley Saucier, to expand our relationships and educational opportunities with Georgia’s Federally Qualified Health Centers and Community Health Centers.

See why we say Georgia is our campus? Truly amazing stuff that would not be possible without the great work of our Office of Academic Affairs, including Dr. Kathryn Martin, our associate dean for regional campuses; and all our campus deans and their support staff.

Bridging the Gap Conference to help address rural obstetric health care disparities

While we’re still on the topic of helping reduce the health disparities underserved communities face, I wanted to let you know about an important upcoming event aimed at just that – the 2025 Inaugural Bridging the Gap – Caring for Rural Georgia Moms Conference. Planned for two weeks from now – Jan. 24-25 – in Albany, this conference is interprofessional and educational and is focused on rural obstetric health care disparities, highlighting gaps in care and providing education and skills training for health care providers.

Georgia has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country – worse than some third-world countries. And according to a recent report from the Georgia Maternal Mortality Review Committee, almost 85% of pregnancy-related deaths from 2019-21 were deemed preventable. We must change that, and I believe conferences like these are a good way to start. The keynote speaker for this event will be Dr. Dean Burke, a 1981 MCG graduate and OB/Gyn, who serves as CMO for the Medical Assistance Plans for the GA Department of Community Health. Other speakers will also help educate attendees on things like what to do during OB emergencies, like placental abruption or hemorrhage; and the latest technology to help decrease OB disparities, like our Tele-OB ED. It’s two days chock full of important information and hands-on demonstrations. My thanks to another MCG alum (1999) who directs our Center for Telehealth, Dr. Matt Lyon, for spearheading this effort, and to the Southwest Georgia Area Health Education Center for helping sponsor. Dr. Lyon tells me nearly 50 people and counting are planning to attend.

Dr. Frank Butler, 1980 MCG alum, honored with Presidential Citizens Medal

To put it frankly…and proudly, MCG and MCG-trained physicians, are changing the world. Here’s another example. Dr. Frank Butler, a 1980 alum, who was actually a Navy SEAL platoon commander before he became a physician, just received our nation’s second highest civilian award, the Presidential Citizens Medal. The award was established to recognize U.S. Citizens who have performed “exemplary deeds of service for our nation” and past recipients include the likes of Hank Aaron and Colin Powell. Dr. Butler certainly is more than qualified.

Paraphrased from a great piece on him from Forbes: After graduating from MCG, Dr. Butler completed a Navy residency in ophthalmology and practiced for a few years until he became the biomedical research director for the Naval Special Warfare Command, where he oversaw the health of Navy personnel during training and ensured that SEALs were fit for missions. But his real passion was improving care on the battlefield, where many soldiers died before they could reach a hospital. With colleagues, he created Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) guidelines that addressed controlling bleeding and compromised airways. After some initial resistance, and some surprising findings about how many soldiers died from wounds that were potentially survivable, all special ops combatants were ordered to start carrying TCCC equipment, including updated tourniquets and clot-promoting battlefield dressings. During his 11 years as chair of the Department of Defense’s Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care, Dr. Butler and colleagues truly transformed battlefield care. During the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts their innovations cut the death rate from severe battlefield wounds in half, to the lowest level in the history of warfare. Wow! What amazing and important contributions. Thank you, Dr. Butler, for your service and for helping save the lives of countless men and women who have put theirs on the line for us.

Dr. Martha Terris to be honored with 2024-25 Women in Science Award

She’s not caring for them right on the battlefield, but certainly someone else among our ranks who has had a profound impact on the lives of countless past and present soldiers is Dr. Martha Terris, our chair of Urology. A true dynamo, she has been repeatedly recognized for her contributions to urologic research. A great example is her work on the Shared Equal Access Regional Cancer Hospital, or SEARCH, cohort, a prospective longitudinal study of men with prostate cancer undergoing treatment at nine Veterans Affairs Medical Centers across the United States, including at the Charlie Norwood VAMC in Augusta. She’s also been a co-investigator, along with our chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dr. Vinata Lokeshwar, on a past Department of Defense grant aimed at the development of new and noninvasive tests that could help predict prognosis for people diagnosed with bladder cancer. More than a decade ago, Dr. Terris reported in the British Journal of Urology International a link between Agent Orange exposure and the risk of aggressive recurrence of prostate cancer in veterans. Exposure to the chemical has also been linked to bladder cancer.

Now she can add another accolade. She is the recipient of the prestigious 2024-25 Women in Science Award from the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA). The award is given to a woman in medicine who has had a lasting impact through exceptional contributions to medical science through basic and /or clinical research, publications and through leadership in their field. That certainly fits. Dr. Terris was nominated by Dr. Theresa Rohr-Kirchgraber, an internist, professor of medicine at our AU/UGA Medical Partnership and past president of AMWA. Dr. Terris will be recognized at the group’s national meeting in March. Congratulations and well-deserved.

My best to you always,

David C. Hess, MD

Dean, Medical College of Georgia

January 17 – MCG Faculty Senate Meeting, noon, Natalie and Lansing B. Lee Jr. Auditorium

February 8 – Igniting the Dream of Medicine, J. Harold Harrison, MD Education Commons

February 21 – MCG State of the College Address, noon, Natalie and Lansing B. Lee Jr. Auditorium

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

March 21 – MCG Match Day

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

May 8 – MCG Hooding Ceremony, 2pm, TBD