Savannah surgeon shares how local medical college can help our health industry
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Dr. Santosh Reddy scrubbing in for a surgery at St. Joseph’s Hospital. But it was a journey for him to get here.
It started at Augusta University’s Medical College of Georgia.
“I did my first two years there and then I found out that we could actually go to Savannah for our last two years,” Dr. Reddy said.
He said the first two years at the university was all about hitting the books and developing his passion for helping others but, “You can learn all the facts and all the information from those first two years, but the last years are where it all sort of comes together.”
While in Savannah for those last two years, he worked side-by-side with a seasoned doctor at Candler Hospital and finished in 2015. He moved away after finishing but ended up coming back to practice in Savannah, He says it was an experience that made him the surgeon he is today.
“It’s just you and you’re attending and you’re learning directly from him or her and you get a lot of hands-on practice and learning from very complex patients that we have here in Southeast Georgia,” Dr. Reddy said.
And Dr. Reddy hopes the Medical College of Georgia coming to our community will place more physicians in our area to combat a shortage of doctors.
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“I would venture to believe that our rate of maybe stage three, stage five four cancers is higher down in Southeast Georgia than it is perhaps in Atlanta where there is more access where people are seeing doctors more often and are getting their screenings,” Dr. Reddy said.
Dr. Reddy will be one of the surgical site chairs that students will learn the ropes from when the Medical College of Georgia opens at Georgia Southern’s Armstrong campus. They will accept 40 students a year.
He says he especially hopes high schoolers and undergrad students will see this as a new opportunity in their backyard.
“The more we can expose folks to the campus down here, the more likely we are to have physicians to come back to actually work here,” Dr. Reddy said.
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