Lavonia Native One of First 10 St. Mary’s Internal Medicine Residents

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

St. Mary’s Health Care System, officially welcomes its first class of Internal Medicine residents and one of them is a native of Lavonia.

The 10 residents, who began orientation on June 24, officially began work Tuesday at St. Mary’s in Athens.

St. Mary’s spokesman Mark Ralston says the Internal Medicine Residency Program is the first of its kind in Northeast Georgia.

“First class of medical residents, not just for St. Mary’s but for all of Northeast Georgia. There has never been a medical residency program in this part of the state. Quite a historic day. There are ten who have joined us this year. Next year we will bring on another ten, and in the third year we will bring on another ten, for a total of 30. It’s a 3 year program, so at this point this ten will rotate off and go into their own practices”
“There will be some looking at some specialties like cardiology or nephrology, but their main focus will be how to be a primary care doctor. Whether they will go into private practice in the community, and family practice or adult medicine or possibly work as hospitalists in a hospital. There primary goal will be the overall car of adults.”

Additionally, the Internal Medicine Residency Program includes five core faculty members, 10 subspecialty education coordinators, and approximately 70 additional faculty for the elective and subspecialty rotations.

Each of the faculty members is actively engaged in providing quality clinical care and medical education on a daily basis.

And Ralston said of this first group of internal medicine residents, one is a Lavonia native.

“His name is Kyle Walker, and he is also a graduate of the University of Georiga. He did is graduate school degree at Georgetown University and completed medical school at Ross University school of Medicine.”

This first group of residents will be training at St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens, but Ralston says there are plans to bring residents to the St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in the years ahead.

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