Dr. Ericka Li Fuentes Appointed Director of Fourth Year in School of Medicine

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Dr. Ericka LiFuentes

MACON – Dr. Ericka V. Li Fuentes was recently appointed director of the fourth year of Mercer University School of Medicine’s M.D. program and chair of the Fourth Year Committee.

“As director of the fourth year, Dr. Li Fuentes oversees all clinical education components of the fourth year, including electives, selectives, required courses and away rotations. She also collaborates with academic affairs staff and administrators to ensure horizontal and vertical integration of the curriculum across the fourth year and to help prepare students for residency,” said Dr. Jean Sumner, dean of the School of Medicine. “Dr. Li Fuentes replaces Dr. Steve Williams, who did an outstanding job in this role and has been a vital part of the School of Medicine for many years.”

Dr. Li Fuentes earned her M.D. in 2006 from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, and completed internal medicine training in 2013 at the Henry Ford Hospital and Wayne State University.

She worked as core faculty in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical Center, Navicent Health, from 2013-2017, and served as director of Internal Medicine Accelerated Track curriculum for the School of Medicine’s Macon campus from 2015-2017.

After serving as a hospitalist for one year at University Hospitals Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. Li Fuentes returned to Macon as faculty in Mercer’s Department of Internal Medicine. She is currently an assistant professor of internal medicine and serves on the IM Residency Competency Committee, IM Residency Program Evaluation Committee and Student Appraisal and Promotions Committee.

Dr. Williams returned to full-time teaching in the M.D. program and also will be mentoring new faculty and providing supplemental career counseling to students. He previously served as associate dean for academic affairs, director of the curriculum and director of the fourth year. 

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 and a Ph.D. in rural health sciences.