Dr. Keisha Callins Appointed Joy McCann Endowed Professor in School of Medicine

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Dr. Keisha Callins

MACON – Dr. Keisha Callins recently accepted a three-year appointment to the Joy McCann Endowed Professorship in Mercer University School of Medicine (MUSM), effective May 1.

“The appointment of Dr. Callins follows a comprehensive school-wide search. She is an outstanding recipient and clearly an example of the type of leader we all should emulate,” said Dr. Jean Sumner, dean of MUSM. “I would like to sincerely thank the search committee and all those who nominated such worthy candidates for consideration. It was truly a rewarding and inclusive process with participation from students, residents and faculty from all three campuses.”

The Joy McCann Professorship for Women in Medicine was established by the Joy McCann Foundation to encourage, inspire and reward women physicians in their academic careers. Through an endowment, the professorship provides enhancement support for a current woman faculty member who is an outstanding mentor and leader in teaching, research, patient care and/or community service.

Criteria for the Joy McCann Professorship includes mentoring and leadership in the profession and the faculty; serving as an effective adviser to medical students and residents; fulfilling leadership roles at local, state and national levels; displaying a commitment to the success of women students, residents and faculty; and providing a vision for service across all campuses of the school.

Dr. Callins will use the award to support professional development activities of female faculty, residents and students on the MUSM campuses in Macon, Savannah and Columbus. The award may also be used to support program development and improvements; encourage mentoring; assist with travel for professional development, such as mission trips, scholarly presentations and professional meeting attendance; and attend career development workshops.

Dr. Callins earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia, Master of Public Health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Doctor of Medicine from the Morehouse School of Medicine. She received postgraduate medical training in obstetrics and gynecology from Morehouse School of Medicine and Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. Additionally, she served as a National Health Service Corps Scholar at Albany Area Primary Health Care as attending physician from 2011-2016 and assistant medical director from 2015-2016.

Dr. Callins joined the MUSM faculty as chair of the Department of Community Medicine in 2017. In 2018, she joined Community Health Care Systems, a Federally Qualified Health Center, to complete her National Health Service Corps loan repayment commitment, and she continues to serve in Jones and Twiggs counties.

Dr. Callins served two governor-appointed positions on the Georgia Composite Medical Board from 2014-2018, and she currently serves on the Sandra Dunagan Deal Early Language and Literary Board.

In addition to working with civic organizations such as the Rotary Club and the Junior League, she is a 2018 graduate of the Medical Association of Georgia’s Physician Leadership Academy, a 2015 graduate of Leadership Georgia, an executive board member of the Georgia State Medical Association and a member/alternate delegate for the Bibb County Medical Society.

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.