MACON/SAVANNAH/COLUMBUS – Dr. Jean Sumner, dean of Mercer University School of Medicine, recently appointed Dr. Alice Aumann House, professor of family medicine, as senior associate dean for admissions and student affairs across all three School of Medicine campuses.
Dr. House will work with associate deans for admissions Dr. E.S. Prakash in Macon and Dr. Sam Murray in Savannah, as well as associate deans for students affairs Dr. Patrick Roche in Macon and Dr. Robert Shelley in Savannah. Dr. House will continue to serve as senior associate dean of the Columbus campus.
“Dr. House is an outstanding member of the Mercer University School of Medicine faculty, having excelled both as a clinician and in core leadership positions,” said Dr. Sumner. “Her experience as student affairs and admissions dean will serve the School well in guiding and assuring continuity in these two vital areas.”
Dr. House was raised in Buena Vista, Georgia, and graduated from Tri-County High School that served Marion, Webster and Schley counties. She earned degrees in biology and psychology from Macon State College (now Middle Georgia State University) and her M.D. degree at Mercer. She completed her residency in family medicine at the Medical Center of Central Georgia (now Medical Center, Navicent Health) and obtained the distinction of Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Certified by the American Board of Family Medicine, Dr. House was in private practice in Byron for several years where she served as chief of staff at Peach Regional Hospital before joining the School of Medicine faculty in 2002. She also served as medical director of Elberta Healthcare Center from 1998-2015.
Dr. House has received numerous family medicine teaching awards from her students. She is an inaugural member of Mercer's Arnold P. Gold Humanism Honor Society and a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honor society, where she also serves as councilor.
Dr. House has been an active member of the faculty by teaching in all four years of the curriculum as well as at the family medicine residency level. She has served as clerkship director in family medicine, secretary of the faculty, chair of the House of Delegates and director of student advising. She has served on multiple committees, sub-committees and ad hoc committees at both the School and University levels. She has been active in the Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians, where she has served as president and chair of the board, as well as on multiple committees on the state and national levels. Additionally, Dr. House was appointed by two governors to serve on the Georgia Composite Medical Board, where she served as chair from 2015-2016 and as chair of the Licensure Committee and the Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Committee.
Dr. House played the flute in the Middle Georgia Concert Band until moving to Columbus, where she joined the Bob Barr Community Band. She has three children, Lee, Jeremy and Betsy, as well as eight grandchildren. Dr. House lives in Midland with her grandson, Evan.
About the Mercer University School of Medicine (Macon, Savannah and Columbus)
Mercer University's School of Medicine was established in 1982 to educate physicians and health professionals to meet the primary care and health care needs of rural and medically underserved areas of Georgia. Today, more than 60 percent of graduates currently practice in the state of Georgia, and of those, more than 80 percent are practicing in rural or medically underserved areas of Georgia. Mercer medical students benefit from a problem-based medical education program that provides early patient care experiences. Such an academic environment fosters the early development of clinical problem-solving and instills in each student an awareness of the place of the basic medical sciences in medical practice. The School opened a full four-year campus in Savannah in 2008 at Memorial University Medical Center. In 2012, the School began offering clinical education for third- and fourth-year medical students in Columbus. Following their second year, students participate in core clinical clerkships at the School's primary teaching hospitals: Medical Center, Navicent Health in Macon; Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah; and The Medical Center and St. Francis Hospital in Columbus. The School also offers master's degrees in family therapy, preclinical sciences and biomedical sciences.
