This year we recognize:
Mary Keith, MD, the Georgia Academy’s Keith Ellis Award winner for Chief/Co-Chief Resident. Dr. Keith is from the Memorial Health Family Medicine Residency Program in Savannah. Her Program Director, Dr. Robert Pallay states that Dr. Keith “embodies all of the qualities that this award is trying to recognize by naming it in his honor.” In addition, he explains that the quote on leadership below is one that summarizes Mary’s approach to all that she has done as a medical student, developing resident, and now as one of our Chief residents this year.
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” —John Maxwell
Dr. Pallay explained that Dr. Keith was one of the first two medical students accepted into the Family Medicine Accelerated Track at Mercer in Savannah, which required her to commit to family medicine during her first year of medical school and to be an ambassador for the specialty during the rest of her undergraduate medical education. If you talk with her, she will tell you without hesitation that she has never regretted that decision for a second, and she was the perfect medical student to bring into the Accelerated Track at the very beginning. She helped a program in its infancy become a success because of her academic accomplishments and the high quality of clinical care she provided as a resident once she was done with the program. She role modeled the specialty of family medicine at the highest level possible, and that demonstrated the potential for success for an accelerated curriculum to the medical school, other residency programs, and our hospital system. The program’s success allowed expansion to other Mercer sites for the Family Medicine Track, and then subsequently, the addition of an Internal Medicine Track because of its success. Specifically, Mary was a key part of that success.
The Keith Ellis award winner receives a free trip to our annual meeting this October along with registration and attendance to the Georgia Academy’s Annual Meeting where she will be recognized.
Congratulations to Chetan Patel, MD, who was voted to be the Georgia Academy Resident of the Year. Dr. Patel attends the Columbus Family Medicine Residency Program and was recommended by Dr. John Bucholtz, the Program Director. He served on the Board of Directors of the Georgia Academy as a Resident Alternate Director and as a Resident Director. He attended the National Congress of Family Medicine Residents and served as an Alternate Delegate, 2016. In addition, he secured a seat on the AAFP Commission on Education (COE) where he currently serves as a member of the Subcommittee on Resident and Student Issues. Dr. Patel graduates in July and we wish him much luck in his family medicine endeavors.
The Resident of the Year receives an engraved plaque and will be recognized during the Georgia Academy’s Annual Meeting in October of this year.