Brenda Dowd to Retire After Nearly 44 Years of Service to Medical Libraries

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Brenda Dowd

MACON – Brenda F. Dowd, administrative coordinator and acquisitions and serials manager for Mercer University School of Medicine’s Dr. W. Douglas and Jane G. Skelton Medical Libraries, has announced her retirement, effective June 12.

Dowd began her journey at Mercer in 1974, when she and Dr. Jocelyn Rankin, founder and director of the School of Medicine’s library, started the medical library from the ground up.

Dowd worked closely with Dr. Rankin on GaIN (Georgia Interactive Network for Medical Education), which was a Mercer-based electronic healthcare nonprofit. Ahead of its time, GaIN was initially funded in 1983 by a grant from the National Library of Medicine and was one of the first computerized information networks to provide learning resources and educational support to physicians and hospitals in rural areas of Georgia.

In 2008, Dowd received her bachelor’s degree from Mercer, graduating magna cum laude. In 2010, she was selected to receive the Mercer Spirit Award.

“With almost 44 years of service to Mercer, Brenda’s tremendous work ethic and years of dedicated service and commitment to the school and the library are unparalleled,” said Dr. Jean Sumner, dean of the School of Medicine. “The faculty, staff and students of the School of Medicine and the Skelton Medical Libraries will miss her knowledge and expertise and wish her a long and happy retirement.”

The Mercer community is invited to attend a reception recognizing Dowd for her service to the University on June 8 at 2:30 p.m. in the Skelton Medical Library in Macon.

About 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.