MACON – Mercer University School of Medicine (MUSM) Dean Jean R. Sumner, M.D., announced recently that Jeffrey L. Stephens, M.D., FACP, FIDSA, has been appointed chair of the Department of Internal Medicine for the Macon campus.
Dr. Stephens, who also serves as professor of medicine, joined the MUSM faculty in 1992. In November 2014, he was named interim chair of the Department of Internal Medicine.
“Dr. Stephens has served the School of Medicine as interim chair for nearly two years and has done an outstanding job. The University sincerely appreciates his exemplary service and commitment to our students and residents,” said Dr. Sumner.
Dr. Stephens is the author of numerous articles and book chapters in the area of infectious diseases. During his career, he has received the J. Willis Hurst Award for teaching from the Georgia Chapter of the American College of Physicians and the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award for humanistic, compassionate care from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.
A native of Morrow, he earned his bachelor's degree with honors in biology from Georgia State University and his M.D. as part of MUSM's second graduating class. As a medical student, he was elected to Mercer's inaugural class of the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society.
Dr. Stephens trained in internal medicine at Emory University and completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at Wake Forest University in 1992. He then returned to Macon as a member of the MUSM faculty and advanced to professor of medicine in 2003.
Additionally, Dr. Stephens has served as chief of medicine for Medical Center, Navicent Health, clerkship director for internal medicine and assistant program director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program.
“I am honored to be named chair of medicine here at my alma mater. I look forward to continuing to build on the great tradition of teaching, clinical care and research in internal medicine at the Mercer School of Medicine,” said Dr. Stephens.
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 Midtown Medical Center and St. Francis Hospital in Columbus. The School also offers master's degrees in family therapy, preclinical sciences and biomedical sciences.
