Progress report on UGA’s new medical school

Artistic rendition of the Medical Education and Research Building on the UGA Health Sciences Campus

From UGA Today

It’s only been a year since the University System of Georgia Board of Regents authorized the establishment of an independent School of Medicine at the University of Georgia, and the institution is wasting no time preparing to turn a vision into a reality.

The School of Medicine has already made significant faculty and administrative hires, prepared the way for a new medical education facility, and hit a critical fundraising milestone. In November, the Board of Regents gave final approval for UGA to grant a Doctor of Medicine degree. It’s one of many steps to getting the medical school running and putting new doctors into the field.

By the fall of 2024, the medical school’s core administrative team was taking shape, with founding Dean Shelley Nuss hiring academic standouts from across the nation.

But UGA didn’t have to look farther than Atlanta to find its senior associate dean of academic affairs. Dr. Erica Brownfield, a specialist in internal medicine, previously served at Emory University as associate dean of medical education. In her new role, Brownfield will plan and implement the medical school’s academic mission across undergraduateand graduate medical education. This includes oversight of accreditation, admissions, and curriculum.

“My excitement is matched with a profound sense of responsibility to help shape medical education and health care in Georgia,” Brownfield says.

In September, UGA announced that prominent gastric cancer researcher Yana Zavros would lead the medical school’s research enterprise. Zavros, who has been on faculty at the University of Cincinnati and the University of Arizona, pioneered organoid-based research for studying gastric cancer. The developments allow researchers to create tissue in the lab that resembles a patient’s organs.

Zavros, who also became the inaugural Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Molecular Medicine, will recruit faculty researchers and set priorities for the new medical school’s research center.

“My vision,” says Zavros, “is that this will be the center that other institutions will look to as an example of how to successfully connect biomedical research and medicine in away that will rapidly translate scientific discovery to the patient.”

Zavros will continue her work with an interdisciplinary team of researchers focused on solving issues of early diagnosis and treatment for Cushing’s disease, which affects people and dogs.

Zavros’ multi-institutional work studies the disease in human and canine patients—ultimately benefiting both. That approach aligns with the university’s Precision One Health Initiative, which recognizes the connections between human, animal, and environmental health and seeks comprehensive solutions.

Then in October, the School of Medicine recruited Brian Steele from the University of Kansas School of Medicine to become the associate dean of admissions. Steele noted UGA’s land-grant mission as one draw to the role; the other is the opportunity to build a new program almost from scratch, a recurring theme for the medical school’s faculty recruits.As the medical school’s org chart takes shape, so does the future of UGA’s Health Sciences Campus. In the fall, UGA approved designs for the new medical education and research facility.

UGA ceremonially broke ground on the facility last spring when Gov. Brian Kemp BSA ’87 and the Georgia General Assembly approved a $50 million investment in the new School of Medicine. In a matter of months, the university matched that investment with $50 million in private funds to construct a 92,000-square-foot facility, which will feature teaching auditoriums, an anatomy lab, simulation bays, and a medical library. Construction is expected to begin this spring.

The new facility is just the start of how the School of Medicine aims to improve Georgians’ well-being and boost the state’s economy. A recent report by nationally recognized consulting firm Tripp Umbach estimated an impact between $1.8 billion and $2.3 billion on the state by 2040. The report concluded that the main drivers of economic return would be improvements to health care, research expansion, and job creation across the state.