MACON – Dr. Jean R. Sumner, dean of Mercer University School of Medicine, recently appointed Dr. Edwin Grimsley, professor of internal medicine, as senior associate dean for the Macon campus, effective July 1.
Dr. Grimsley will continue to serve as associate dean for clinical education for the Macon campus and as compliance officer for Mercer Medicine.
A native of Bainbridge, Dr. Grimsley graduated from Bainbridge High School, Bainbridge State College and the University of Georgia, earning a Bachelor of Science in pharmacy. He earned his M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia and completed his residency at Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, where he also served as chief resident.
Dr. Grimsley is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and was in private practice in Bainbridge for several years before joining the medical faculty at Memorial Health University Medical Center in 1992.
Dr. Grimsley has won numerous teaching awards from both residents and medical students. In 1996, he was awarded the J. Willis Hurst Outstanding Bedside Teacher Award as the outstanding medical educator in the state by the Georgia Chapter of the American College of Physicians. At the time, he was the youngest recipient of this award. In 2013, he received the Laureate Award from the Georgia Chapter of the American College of Physicians. Dr. Grimsley was awarded Mastership in the American College of Physicians in 2016. He is a member of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation and was awarded the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award in 2006.
Dr. Grimsley was a charter member of the School of Medicine faculty at Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, where he served as clerkship director, deputy program director, program director and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine until 2003, when he moved to the the Macon campus. He served as program director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program on the Macon campus from 2006-2016. He also served as interim chair of the Department of Internal Medicine.
In 2016, Dr. Grimsley became clerkship director of internal medicine for the Macon campus, taking him back to his original medical education roots from his time in Savannah. He has served on numerous committees, sub-committees and ad hoc committees at the School of Medicine. For the past six years, he served as chair of the Graduate Medical Education Committee at Navicent Health, as well as the Assistant Designated Institutional Official. He is an active member of the American College of Physicians, where he serves on the Governor's Advisory Council for the Georgia Chapter, and is a member of the Clerkship Directors of Internal Medicine. He has published and presented numerous abstracts, posters and papers.
Dr. Grimsley is married to Peggy Grimsley, a native of Jesup, and they have two children, Elizabeth Lowe, who resides in Macon with her husband, Edward, and Walker Grimsley, a senior in the School of Forestry at the University of Georgia.
About the Mercer University School of Medicine (Macon, Savannah and Columbus)
Mercer University's School of Medicine was established in 1982 to educate physicians and health professionals to meet the primary care and health care needs of rural and medically underserved areas of Georgia. Today, more than 60 percent of graduates currently practice in the state of Georgia, and of those, more than 80 percent are practicing in rural or medically underserved areas of Georgia. Mercer medical students benefit from a problem-based medical education program that provides early patient care experiences. Such an academic environment fosters the early development of clinical problem-solving and instills in each student an awareness of the place of the basic medical sciences in medical practice. The School opened a full four-year campus in Savannah in 2008 at Memorial University Medical Center. In 2012, the School began offering clinical education for third- and fourth-year medical students in Columbus. Following their second year, students participate in core clinical clerkships at the School's primary teaching hospitals: Medical Center, Navicent Health in Macon; Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah; and The Medical Center and St. Francis Hospital in Columbus. The School also offers master's degrees in family therapy, preclinical sciences and biomedical sciences.
