Medical Partnership faculty and staff honored

Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership faculty and staff gathered in George Hall on Tuesday, February 25 to celebrate extraordinary employees for AY24 (2023-24). Awards presented during the ceremony were: Medical Student Advisor of the Year, Excellence in Faculty Leadership, Excellence in Scholarship, Peer-Nominated Teaching Award, Faculty Mentor of the Year, Exemplary Teaching Award, Excellence in Teaching for Part-Time Clinical Faculty, and the Outstanding Staff Award.

Medical Student Advisor of the Year Award

The advisor’s achievement was assessed using the following criteria: exemplary academic support for students, exemplary career advising, specialty navigation and/or residency planning with students, and exemplary mentorship of students.

Lynn Ramsey, MEd

Excellence in Faculty Leadership Award

The leader’s achievement was assessed using the following criteria: established a collaborative environment for the team, used effective team management strategies, and effectively used data to appropriately evaluate project/initiative outcomes. This role is nominated by faculty and senior leadership.

Dr. Tresa Chappell

Excellence in Scholarship Award

Eligible faculty members must have shared his/her scholarship with national/international forums. Eligible types of scholarship include peer-reviewed publications, peer-reviewed teaching repositories, invited publications, books/book chapters, editorials, oral abstracts, and poster abstracts.

Medical Education Scholarship: Dr. Kearney Gunsalus

Translational Scholarship: Dr. Ken Rosenthal

Peer-Nominated Teaching Award

Open to faculty who teach in Years 1 & 2. Criteria: effective engagement of teaching methods, effective communication while teaching, and effectiveness of session organization.

Small Group Teaching for Basic Science: Dr. Thom Gaddy

Small Group Teaching for Clinical Science: Dr. Jo Albritton

Large Group Teaching: Julie Gaines, MLIS

Clinical Teaching (Clinical Skills/Community Health Teaching/Simulation): Dr. Kim Giffen

Faculty Mentor of the Year

Eligible faculty members must have served as a mentor in the Campus Mentoring Program. Criteria: how your mentor helped the mentee make progress for promotion and/or advancement, how your mentor helped the mentee improve his/her research/scholarship skills, and how your mentor helped the mentee improve his/her teaching skills.

Dr. Brett Szymik

AY 2023/24 Medical College of Georgia’s Excellence in Teaching Awards

Seventy Medical Partnership faculty members were honored with 2023-2024 Medical College of Georgia’s Excellence in Teaching Awards for their work with students.

Years 1 and 2 faculty members had to teach a minimum of six sessions and scored in the top 25% of teaching evaluations scored by students. Years 3 and 4 are community faculty members in Northeast Georgia who scored in the top 20% of their evaluations.

Years 1 & 2

Julie Gaines, MLIS

Dr. Ellen House

Dr. Thomas Howdieshell

Dr. Carrie Kelly

Dr. Aimee Martin

Dr. Amy Medlock

Dr. Kate Meixner

Dr. David Paulk

Dr. Kim Rathbun

Dr. Theresa Rohr-Kirchgraber

Dr. Donald Scott

Dr. Andrew Sobering

Dr. Brett Szymik

Dr. Ariel VanLeuven

Dr. DeLoris Hesse

Dr. Melanie Wooten

Years 3 & 4

Dr. Abrar Ansari (Orthopedics)

Dr. James Appiah-Pippim (Critical Care)

Dr. Amy Bailey (Family Medicine)

Dr. Ashley Bohn (Pediatrics)

Dr. Bill Bostock (Family Medicine)

Dr. Yolin Bueno (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Jaime Burkle (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Robert Byrne (Surgery)

Dr. Samuel Church (Family Medicine)

Dr. Amber Degryse (Critical Care)

Dr. Darren Dillard (Family Medicine)

Dr. Stephanie Eaton (Critical Care)

Dr. Kenny Esho (Pediatrics)

Dr. Casey Evans (OB-GYN)

Dr. Mason Florence (Orthopedics)

Dr. Nick Fox (Critical Care)

Dr. Brian Freeman (Surgery)

Dr. Daniel Gordon (Family Medicine)

Dr. James Griffin (Surgery)

Dr. Philip Gross (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Brandon Harden (Pediatrics)

Dr. Lara Hart (OB-GYN)

Dr. Janeanna Heath (Pediatrics)

Dr. Louis Hempel (Pediatrics)

Dr. Paul Henkel (Orthopedics)

Dr. Carolina Hsu (Pediatrics)

Dr. Trammel Jones (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Linu Jospeh (Family Medicine)

Dr. Peter Kaplan (Family Medicine)

Dr. Ishmael Lamptey-Mills (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Malik Malik (Critical Care)

Dr. Julie Martin (Pediatrics)

Dr. Aja McCutchen (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Kelly Montgomery (Pediatrics)

Dr. Eva Moore (Surgery)

Dr. Alan Morgan (Neurology)

Dr. Cullen Morris (Surgery)

Dr. Jonathan Murrow (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Matthew Newcomb (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Kimtuyen Nguyen (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Rachel Nisbet (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Kamal Patel (Psychiatry)

Dr. Stephen Purser (Family Medicine)

Dr. Dinesh Raju (Neurology)

Dr. Jacqueline Rosenthal (Neurology)

Dr. Jordan Rush (OB-GYN)

Dr. David Ryan (Orthopedics)

Dr. Amir Shirazi (Internal Medicine)

Dr. Thomas Sholes (OB-GYN)

Dr. Winifred Soufi (OB-GYN)

Dr. Ben Thrower (Neurology)

Dr. Akilah Tomingas (Pediatrics)

Dr. Meredith Udell (Pediatrics)

Dr. Chelsea Venditto (Surgery)

Excellence in Teaching for Part-Time Clinical Faculty

These awardees must be part-time clinicians who participate only in Clinical Skills or only in Community and Population Health. They also must receive a quantitative evaluation score of five.

Dr. Brett Atchley

Dr. Karl Barnett

Dr. Jean Chin

Dr. Meghan Cook

Dr. Brett Magner

Dr. Jon Marti

Dr. Susan Podolsky

Educators of the Year Award- Spring 2024

Selected annually every spring by each class of students at the Medical Partnership. Each class is polled to select the Educator of the Year and the results are compiled to select the winner.

Class of 2024- Dr. Tom Howdishell

Class of 2025- Dr. Kim Rathbun

Class of 2026- Dr. Tom Howdieshell

Class of 2027- Dr. Brett Szymik

Outstanding Staff Award

Recognizes a staff member whose outstanding performance contributes to the overall success of the Medical Partnership. Awardees should: model excellence and outstanding job performance and consistently go above and beyond their job expectations in supporting the Medical Partnership.

Jeni Fitzpatrick, RN

2025 Years of Service

15 Years of Service

Molly Bond

Julie Gaines

DeLoris Hesse

Suzanne Lester

Michelle Nuss

Lynn Ramsey

Toby Tally

Thomas Wells

10 Years of Service

Jean Chin

Aimee Martin

Abby Ward

Lela Ward

5 Years of Service

Deborah Barany

Tresa Chappell

Matthew Farmer

Nicholas Fox

Thomas Howdieshell

Carrie Kelly

Robert Mackin

Bruce Middendorf

Samantha McCabe

Jaya Pamidimukkala

Ariel VanLeuven

Stephanie Vaughn