School of Medicine Contributes Resources to COVID-19 Effort

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Mercer Medicine Donation to Navicent copy

MACON – Mercer University School of Medicine is pouring its resources into the fight against COVID-19 in Georgia.

Mercer recently donated a total of 300 disposable N95 masks to Navicent Health, Coliseum Medical Centers and Central Georgia Cancer Care.

The School also notified the Department of Community Health of several ventilators available for use.

While Mercer Medicine physicians were caring for patients on the front lines of the pandemic, School of Medicine students volunteered in the state’s Southeast Regional Health District, where they were trained to collect viral specimens at the district’s drive-thru testing site and assisted with callbacks to tested patients.

Elsewhere, students assisted the American Red Cross with a regional blood drive.

Faculty physicians volunteered to supervise residents as part of a COVID-19 response team, while Division of Biomedical Sciences professors collaborated to produce educational information for the public on the new coronavirus.

Last week, the Georgia Rural Health Innovation Center, housed in the School of Medicine, held a training session to prepare for the rollout of a free telemedicine platform for rural physicians across the state.

“Mercer University School of Medicine faculty, staff and students are committed in every way possible to serve our state in this crisis,” said Dean Jean Sumner, M.D., F.A.C.P.

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 Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital 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.

Mercer Medicine Donation to Coliseum
Debi Hobbs, assistant nurse manager at Mercer Medicine, and Kim Pitts, director of clinical and billing services at Mercer Medicine, delivered 100 masks to Coliseum Medical Centers Director of Infection Control Brandy Jones. Pictured at top: Hobbs and Pitts delivered an additional 100 masks to Navicent Health Director of Supply Chain Services Charles Platt.