My personal journey with the Medical College of Georgia began in Augusta at the old University Hospital, long before MCG’s current teaching hospitals were ever conceived.
My father was a junior medical student at MCG when the car he was driving, with my mother in the passenger seat, was t-boned by a car full of nuns, who I am sure bore my mother no ill will.
Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, but my mother went into labor later in the day and I was born in University Hospital a few weeks premature.
After my dad graduated from MCG and did a rotating general internship in Greenville, South Carolina, he moved back to his hometown, and like many others right after WWII, hung up his shingle. He joined an older physician and they taught each other as they took care of the people in the community. MCG’s legacy was a familiar part of my childhood — I grew up hearing about the medical school, seeing that unique skull and crossbones ring on his hand and watching him practice his art.
When it came time for me to apply to medical school, I, of course, followed his lead and applied to MCG — best move I ever made. After medical school I trained in surgery at the Naval Regional Medical Center at Portsmouth, Virginia, with residents, students and faculty from all over the country. I felt like my MCG education prepared me better than many and certainly better prepared me clinically. That was MCG’s legacy at work in me.
As campus associate dean at our medical school’s Southeast Campus in Savannah and Brunswick, I am now privileged to be a part of instilling that legacy in future generations of MCG-trained physicians.
As president of the 130-year-old MCG alumni association, I was honored to speak to our newest colleagues at this spring’s Hooding Ceremony. I told the medical school’s 185th graduating class that they were now the bearers of that nearly 200-year-old legacy.
They will be mentors and role models to many who will follow their lead as they grow and mature. I know they will lead wisely, as so many of you have and continue to do.
They are the word of mouth ambassadors and representatives of our medical school. Our reputation depends on them. I know that their knowledge, experiences and input to this association will influence the course for many more generations to come. Their contributions, like yours, will be invaluable to our medical school’s growth.
I hope that they, and you, will continue to stay engaged with your medical school and help us ensure that every medical student continues to benefit from the same support and superior education that you received.
My best to you always.
Phillip Roberts, MD
'62
2020 Distinguished Alumnus, Professional Achievement
When Dr. Phillip Roberts arrived in Albany from Boston in 1980, the hematologist and 1962 Medical College of Georgia graduate set up shop in a rented 900-square-foot office. He used the $25,000 he’d made on a recent real estate sale to buy the equipment he’d need, like exam tables. At the time, he was the only physician in Albany with experience treating blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma. The next closest was in Macon, a hundred miles away.
Sam Richwine, MD
'77
2020 Distinguished Alumnus, Loyalty
Dr. Sam Richwine came to the Medical College of Georgia as a student in 1973. Richwine earned his MD in 1977, started his surgery residency that summer and finished his plastic surgery training in 1984. He came back to his alma mater to help train surgery residents in Augusta, while maintaining his busy practice in Gainesville. He served the MCG Alumni Association for five years, including a year as president from 2013-14; and the MCG Foundation Board for seven years, two as board chair.
Koosh Desai, MD
'16
2020 Outstanding Young Alumnus
Dr. Koosh Desai, a 2016 graduate and an internist at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, is the 2020 Distinguished Young Alum for the Medical College of Georgia. Desai, who spent his clinically intensive third and fourth years of medical school at the MCG Southwest Campus, based in Albany, returned to the campus in 2019 as faculty to help build out a new curriculum that the medical school hopes will produce more primary care physicians for Georgia.
Zooming Career
MCG alums are finding a new way to give back to their alma mater — through the next generation.
Never taken for granted
John West also knows this — and this is actually the real story: Had his grandfather not become a doctor, and had his father not persevered, he would not be here.
A Seed that's bloomed
Betty and Lovick Corn’s extraordinary endowment 20 years ago to MCG pediatric cancer researcher Dr. David Munn continues to bear fruit.
MCG Office of Alumni Affairs
MCG Office of Alumni Affairs
1120 15th Street, PERS100
Augusta, GA 30912
706-737-1759
Media Gallery Class of 2025 Stethoscope Presentation
Our alumni get together all over the world at chapter events, networking forums, career conversations and awards ceremonies. See if you recognize anyone in these photos or videos!
MCG Hooding 2021
2021 MCG Match Day
2021 Raft Debate
White Coat Ceremony Class of 2025
MCG Alumni 2019 Banquet
MCG Dean's Reception - Alumni Wknd 2019
MCG 2018 Faculty Awards
Investiture Ceremony 2018
You should have recently received a letter regarding the MCG Stethoscope Program that provides a MCG branded stethoscope to first-year medical students.
Due to dozens of donations from alumni, faculty and friends, the Medical College of Georgia Alumni Association was able to provide stethoscopes for every freshman medical student last year and we hope to do the same for our incoming Class of 2025. For many medical students, receiving their first stethoscope is the first tangible sign that their dream of becoming a physician is coming true. The response from our future colleagues was overwhelming appreciation and gratitude.
This is an amazing opportunity to impact a students’ life at the beginning of this special journey to becoming a physician.
What better way to welcome the Class of 2025, than providing them with MCG branded stethoscopes, accompanied by a note of encouragement from you, to symbolize the bond they you both will always share with MCG.
Please click below to impact an MCG student’s life forever. Stethoscopes are $250 each.
MCG Foundation - Stethoscopes for Freshman
In gratitude,
Associate Vice President for Alumni Engagement
P.S. I have already purchased 4 stethoscopes and I hope you will join me in supporting this program!
Learn more about our global network of alumni and the impact they are making on the world.
Dr. William Moore, a 1959 MCG graduate who had served as State Epidemiologist and Director of the Communicable and Environmental Disease Service Section of the Tennessee Department of Health died Sept. 14. Read Dr. Moore’s obituary.
Continue ReadingDr. Sara Hoover, a 1959 graduate who was one of only three women in her graduating class, died Sept. 17. Read Dr. Hoover’s obituary.
Continue ReadingDr. Fredrick Lee O’Neal, Jr., 58, of Rome, GA, went to his eternal home on August 27, 2021. Read Dr. O’Neal’s obituary.
Continue ReadingDr. Martha Downs Clements, 80, of Pine Mountain, Georgia passed away on August 28, 2021, at Saint Francis Hospital in Columbus, Georgia. Read Dr. Clements obituary.
Continue ReadingDr. Edith June DeZoort of Stone Mountain, GA died Friday, August 13, 2021, in Decatur, GA at the age of 87. Read Dr. DeZoort’s obituary.
Continue ReadingDr. Edward Frank Durst, a retired surgeon and 1967 graduate of the Medical College of Georgia, died Aug. 14. Read Dr. Durst’s obituary.
Continue Reading