MACON, GA — Mercer University School of Medicine (MUSM) announced a new partnership with Tanner Health to establish a regional campus for clinical training in Carrollton, where third- and fourth-year medical students will live, learn and train during the final two years of their education.
The Carrollton clinical campus will allow students to gain experience in a tertiary care setting that serves largely rural communities — further advancing the school’s mission to improve access to health care in Georgia’s rural underserved regions. The first group of third-year medical students will begin rotations in Carrollton in July 2026, transferring from MUSM’s Columbus, Macon and Savannah campuses.
“We are excited to partner with Tanner Health to expand clinical education in this vital region of the state. Tanner provides exceptional care and is deeply committed to the communities it serves,” said School of Medicine Dean Jean Sumner, M.D., F.A.C.P. “Our students come from across Georgia, many from rural areas. With the opportunity to train in Carrollton, we believe many will be inspired to remain and practice in this region.”
The Carrollton site will be located in a dedicated medical education unit on the main Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton campus at 705 Dixie St. Starting in July 2026, the site will offer all Year 3 core clerkships and electives, as well as the sub-internship, elective, and required rotations for Year 4 of MUSM’s M.D. program.
Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton serves a multi-county region — much of it rural — making it a strategic addition to Mercer’s existing campus locations.
“Tanner has been deeply rooted in West Georgia for 75 years, and this partnership reflects our continued commitment to the region,” said Loy Howard, president and CEO of Tanner Health. “By welcoming Mercer University School of Medicine students to Carrollton, we are not only strengthening our health system but also helping to ensure that the next generation of physicians is prepared to serve rural communities with excellence and compassion.”
This expansion underscores MUSM’s deep commitment to addressing Georgia’s physician workforce shortage. The school exclusively admits Georgia residents, with a focus on students from rural areas who are most likely to return and serve their home communities. The Carrollton campus extends that mission into a critical area of the state with unmet health care needs. In addition to training at Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton, students will rotate through other affiliated regional facilities.
Several Tanner Health physicians have been named clerkship directors: Daniel Feckoury, M.D. (family medicine), Jesse Singh, M.D. (internal medicine), Emily Shelton, M.D. (obstetrics and gynecology), Amanda Nguyen, M.D. (pediatrics), Kenneth Genova, M.D. (psychiatry) and Barry Harris, M.D. (surgery). Yolonda Brown, clinical rotation supervisor, will support students on site with additional staff to be added over the next year.
Tim Paul, M.D., senior vice president of medical affairs and chief quality officer at Tanner Health, will lead the Carrollton clinical campus as associate dean.
“This new campus represents an exciting opportunity to invest in both medical education and the future health of our region,” said Dr. Paul. “While training here at Tanner, our students will experience firsthand the challenges and rewards of practicing medicine in rural and underserved areas — and many, we hope, will choose to build their careers right here in West Georgia.”
Tanner Health is constructing a medical simulation center within the new medical education unit in Carrollton to support hands-on medical training. The center will function as an interprofessional experiential lab for medical students, physicians and other health professionals. It will feature exam rooms where students practice taking patient histories and performing physical exams with standardized patients, as well as simulation labs for procedures such as intravenous catheter placement, lumbar puncture and managing medical emergencies like respiratory distress and cardiac arrest in a team setting. Equipped with high-fidelity simulators and advanced audiovisual systems, faculty can modify scenarios in real time and review encounters with teams during post-session debriefings. This simulation center will provide students with training tools that align with the standards of MUSM’s other campuses.
MUSM has a long-standing relationship with Tanner Health, dating back to 1992 with the placement of students for population health rotations. In July 2024, Tanner expanded this partnership by sending students to Carrollton for rural clerkship experiences in internal medicine, pediatrics, OB-GYN, psychiatry, family medicine and surgery. Starting this academic year, students will begin completing full-length clerkship rotations in these specialties as the system ramps up to the opening of its new clinical campus.
The Carrollton clinical campus represents a shared investment in the future of rural health care — and a meaningful step forward in Mercer’s mission to educate physicians and health professionals to serve Georgia’s rural medically underserved communities.
About 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 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 additional four-year M.D. campuses in Savannah in 2008 and in Columbus in 2021, and a clinical campus in Valdosta in 2024. Following their second year, students participate in core clinical clerkships at the School’s primary teaching hospitals: Atrium Health Navicent The Medical Center and Piedmont Macon Medical Center in Macon; Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah; Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital and St. Francis Hospital in Columbus; and SGMC Health in Valdosta. The School also offers master’s degrees in preclinical sciences and family therapy and Ph.D.s in biomedical sciences and rural health sciences.
About Tanner Health
Tanner Health is a nonprofit regional health system serving west Georgia and east Alabama. Anchored by Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton, the system includes four hospitals, nearly 40 medical practices, a comprehensive behavioral health program, wellness and rehabilitation services and one of the region’s largest multi-specialty physician groups. For 75 years, Tanner has been committed to improving the health of the communities it serves through quality care, innovation and community partnerships.
