MOULTRIE, Ga. – Georgia South Graduate Medical Education is pleased to announce that both residency programs have successfully filled their full complement of residents for the upcoming academic year.
Georgia South Family Medicine Residency Program matched with its seventh class of residents. The family medicine class of 2025 includes Bayan Suleiman, M.D., Montavious McKenzie, M.D., Charles Haddad, M.D., and Monica Drummond, D.O.
For its inaugural year, Georgia South Psychiatry Residency Program matched with three residents. These residents, who will spend four years of training in the psychiatry program, include Anthony Cimmino, M.D., Xuan Ouyang, D.O., and Richard Tricardo, M.D.
In a residency program, “matching” means the doctors that Georgia South selected also selected Georgia South. These seven residents were chosen out of a combined pool of 791 total applicants.
“We started Georgia South Family Medicine Residency Program in 2016 to address the shortage of physicians in rural areas and contribute a tangible solution to the problem,” said Colquitt Regional President and CEO Jim Matney. “Once the family medicine program was up and running, we turned our sights to the next specialty we believed would be most beneficial to our area – psychiatry. The state of Georgia is in great need of psychiatric services, and our goal is to have at least 65 percent of those we train to stay within 100 miles of Colquitt County to practice after graduation.”
Georgia South has been successful in attracting top talent to the program, and four of its ten graduates are now practicing medicine in Colquitt County. These include Jessica Brumfield-Mitchum, D.O., Michael Magat, D.O., Catie Duskin, D.O., and Kayla Batchelor, D.O. In addition, three of Georgia South’s third-year family medicine residents have signed on to stay at Colquitt Regional once they graduate, which include Ethan McBrayer, D.O., Jermaine Robinson, D.O., and Stephen Yarbrough, D.O.
“Each new doctor that stays in the region generates over $1.5 million in economic impact and creates six new jobs,” said Hospital Authority Chairman Richard E. Turner, Jr. “By staying in our region, these physicians also improve access to care for our citizens, positively impacting health outcomes for generations. Medical Education has had other significant impacts to our community, including the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. PCOM was an early partner in the residency program and will soon graduate its first class of medical students, many of whom we hope to have as residents at Georgia South.”
The new academic year begins for both new classes of residents in the summer of 2022. A formal ceremony will be held later this year to officially welcome the new residents.
Each year, graduating medical students across the nation apply for acceptance into residency programs. This is a very in-depth process that involves an online application and multiple interviews. At the end of the interview season, each candidate and each program rank their top choices. On the designated national Match Day, the National Residency Match Program reveals which candidates matched into which programs.
“For graduating medical students across the US, Match Day is the culmination of years of education, training, and deciphering what type of medicine they want to practice,” said Georgia South Family Medicine Residency Program Director Kirby Smith, D.O. “Our faculty and residents work tirelessly for months to interview and host potential residents both virtually and on site. We feel a tremendous investment in each class from the moment they are accepted into our program.”
This year’s addition of the Georgia South Psychiatry Residency Program is especially significant, as its staff and faculty have been working towards this since 2019, when the program received a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration. It is the only program of its kind in the region.
“Adding psychiatry this year makes the process even more special, because there was such a huge support for building the program from our Governor and legislators, to the regional growth of faculty for the program,” said Georgia South Psychiatry Residency Program Director Lisa Rudolph-Watson, M.D. “We are tremendously proud to welcome this class to our medical family and community.”
For more information on Georgia South Graduate Medical Education, please contact Victoria Gallagher at 229-502-9769 or click here to send us a message.
