Mercer Medicine Plains was opened to patients in July, and is booked through late fall
PLAINS, GA | By Jennifer Parks – jennifer.parks@albanyherald.com | Aug 18, 2018
Original Article can be found at: https://www.albanyherald.com/
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Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Mercer University President William D. Underwood, Mercer University School of Medicine Dean Jean Sumner and others will celebrate later this week the opening of the School of Medicine’s new primary care facility in downtown Plains.
The former president and First Lady Rosalynn Carter hosted representatives from Mercer in May to discuss plans to establish a medical clinic in Plains following the closing of Plains Medical Center in March with the retirement of the city’s last physician.
The final product of that meeting will be realized Wednesday with an official ribbon-cutting — the beginning of what Mercer officials said would be a long-term relationship with its southwest Georgia partners.
“The Mercer University School of Medicine’s mission is to provide physicians to rural southwest Georgia,” Sumner said. “We are passionate about rural health.”
In July, the facility now known as Mercer Medicine Plains, a primary care practice and division of the faculty practice of Mercer School of Medicine, began accepting patients. With the help from the city of Plains, Mercer officials took a look at the facilities and refurbished them — including restocking the building with both supplies and personnel.
The clinic offers comprehensive primary care services using physicians and nurse practitioners as well as specialty care and mental health services through both in-person and telehealth consultation. Care is available Monday through Friday and on Saturday mornings, with a call service providing coverage in the evenings and on weekends. On-site services include primary care, internal medicine, OB/GYN, marriage and family therapy and counseling, and lab and X-ray.
Telemedicine technology allows additional access to cardiologists, pulmonologists, endocrinologists and all other specialists offered at Mercer Medicine in Macon.
Charles Duffey, chief operating officer at Mercer Medicine, said the personnel includes a full-time physician, nurse practitioner, three clinical staff members, radiologist and a medical receptionist. The X-ray services should be coming online in the coming days, he said.
Sumner said that in the month the facility has been open, it has gained enough of a following to be booked into late fall. Officials with Mercer’s School of Medicine said they intend to use what they learn in the establishment of the Plains clinic to build the foundations for other facilities like it throughout Georgia.
“Mercer’s focus has always been to serve the underserved,” Duffey said. “The clinic is the pilot for that program. It is an all-encompassing facility. We are building patient relationships rather than (focusing on) medical encounters.
“The x-ray on-site will decrease the level of traveling and follow-up (appointments) to a different location. … (We can) not just impact Plains. We can change health care across rural areas.”
Landscaping outside the clinic includes a butterfly garden that is part of the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail, an effort by the former first lady to inspire the planting of flowers and milkweed to promote the return and migration of the threatened Monarch butterfly population in North America.
The clinic will also serve to educate future health care professionals, as it will have medical students on-site while pharmacy students will be spending time with a pharmacist in the area to further their education. What has helped in all of this, officials at Mercer said, is how the surrounding community has embraced both medical education as well as access.
“We hope to have one medical student there all day,” Duffey said. “It is charming, the support we get in the community. It is rewarding to practice in rural health. Once you have been in that environment, it is hard to leave.
“The community support is instrumental in getting this up and running.”
Meanwhile, a collection of data will turn into a population health survey to pinpoint the needs not yet identified and how the clinic is impacting overall wellness. This might potentially tell Mercer officials where to go next in terms of service expansion and outreach.
“If we see a need for a service in Plains, and if it is sustainable, we are open to that,” Sumner said.
Mercer University’s School of Medicine was established in 1982 to educate physicians and health professionals to meet the needs of rural and medically underserved areas of Georgia. Today, more than 60 percent of graduates currently practice in the state, and of those, more than 80 percent are practicing in rural or medically underserved areas.
The new clinic in Plains can stand out just by the area it serves, and the commitment on Mercer’s end is to work with any such region that will work with the university to maintain the long-term goal that lives be saved, diseases be prevented and communities become empowered.
“We value rural applicants, because they are more likely to come back (and practice in rural areas),” Sumner said. “I personally feel like the best doctors in the country are in rural areas (because of the demands placed on them).
“We have been faithful in that promise (of helping underserved areas to) change our state. It is our primary focus at Mercer.”
The clinic is located at 106 Main St. in Plains.
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