James March-April 2025 web - Flipbook - Page 73
Dr. David C. Hess is the dean of the Medical College
of Georgia (MCG) and executive vice president for
medical affairs and Integration at Augusta University
in Augusta. He also serves as the presidential distinguished chair and as a professor in the MCG Department of Neurology.
Hess joined MCG’s faculty in 1990, chaired the department of neurology for 17 years and has been the
dean for seven years. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland School
of Medicine, Hess is triple board certi昀椀ed in internal
medicine, neurology, and vascular neurology. He completed his neurology residency and vascular neurology
& stroke fellowship at MCG and AU Health System.
Hess specializes in stroke research projects and
has nearly 220 peer-reviewed publications. He currently is the principal investigator on three National
Institutes of Health grants and an NIH COVID-19 supplement award.
The dean has been named to America’s Top Doctors and Best Doctors in America every year since
2000. Freelance writer Everett Catts conducted this
interview for James.
Q Would you agree that your
biggest role as dean so far has
been to manage MCG’s curriculum changes? And share your
latest good news.
A Certainly. The curriculum
change was done in 2020,
but to set the stage we have
a four-year campus in Savannah that opened in July, but
we had a four-year campus in
Athens over a decade prior to
that, and regional campuses
in Albany, Rome, Dalton and
Brunswick. (The state soon will
have) three four-year campuses: in Augusta, Athens and
Savannah—and we have one of
the most established campus
systems in the country.
As to curriculum, we
changed it to three-plus curriculum— which means you can
get through the medical school
in three years. We have four
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