VALDOSTA – Some Mercer University medical graduates will head to South Georgia starting in 2022.

South Georgia Medical Center announced a new partnership with the Mercer University School of Medicine Thursday to establish internal medicine and emergency medicine residency programs.

Starting in 2022, programs will last between three and four years. Classes will start with eight residents and eventually expand to 24 internal medicine residents and 16 emergency medicine residents.

Mercer was a natural choice for the hospital, Dr. Brian Dawson, SGMC chief medical officer, said Thursday during a press conference in the lobby of the Dasher Heart Center.

Dawson pointed to Mercer’s medical school mission to serve rural and underserved parts of Georgia as a major factor in the decision. It also helps that Mercer is a quick jaunt up Interstate 75. 

“Thankfully for us, we didn’t have to look far,” Dawson said.

The partnership is seen as a win-win: help train and diversify the skill sets of Mercer physicians while introducing – and hopefully recruiting – future doctors to the Valdosta area. Pulmonologist Dr. Gregory Beale will serve as clinical director for the internal medicine residency program.

Dr. Jean Sumner, dean of the Mercer University School of Medicine, said the real benefit for her medical gradates will be seeing a wide range of patients that may not be possible in larger, urban cities.

“The experience they’ll have in Valdosta is actually in some ways better than a tertiary big city hospital because they see a wide variety of patients that are often very ill, and they have excellent clinical skills,” she said. “Medicine is overspecialized in a lot of ways.”

Deciding to partner with Mercer had been a 10-year dance, according to Sam Allen, Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes Lowndes County chairman, who added he is excited to see how the program will blossom.

Mercer University President William Underwood said 90% of graduates from Mercer’s medical school stay in Georgia after graduation.

Dr. Sid Staton, SGMC chief of staff and a graduate of Mercer’s medical school, serves as an example of what future residents can hope to achieve. 

Thankful to his own mentor, Dr. Joe Stubbs, Staton said he is excited to pay it forward and cultivate new generations of physicians in South Georgia.

“They are true to that mission. They’ve been that way since day one and they continue to do that over the years,” he said. “I’m proof of that, doing interventional cardiology in South Georgia where there’s a tremendous need.”

Ronnie Dean, SGMC chief executive officer, said he is excited to start the two residency programs and said with July 1 being the hospital’s 65-year anniversary, he couldn’t imagine SGMC’s founders ever predicting it would grow into a four hospital system.

Sumner pointed to the emphasis SGMC places on patient relationships.

“Here you have superb clinicians who develop relationships with patients and what drives quality is the doctor-patient relationship,” Sumner said. “And this system still has that.”

She said the Valdosta area already has a significant portion of graduates from her medical school and she hopes to grow it even more.

“Someone told me we have 100 Mercer graduates within 60 miles of Valdosta,” Sumner said.

“We want to make that 1,000.”