Doctors hope new clinic at a Columbus hospital will help expand access to health care
Located in the H building at St. Francis-Emory off of Manchester Expressway, the clinic is seen as a building block in producing well-prepared doctors when they leave the internal medicine residency program, Dr. Anupa Rai, the program director, said.
The accredited, three-year internal medicine residency program is St. Francis-Emory’s first, and is a community-based program that began in July 2022.
Through the new clinic, residents will be able to see patients during their first visit and follow-ups that allows them to gain experience and build connections with patients. The residents are always supervised by faculty.
Dr. George Jarrell, a resident from Columbus, looks forward to serving the community.
“Being from here, I want the people of Columbus to be happy and healthy,” Jarrell said. “And this clinic is a big part of their health. I honestly believe people can’t be happy until they’re healthy.”
The Residency Program
There are 30 doctors in the internal residency program, Rai said, with 10 residents in each year of the program.
Dr. Howard Willis, an internal medicine specialist who has been in practice 43 years, is part of the faculty working at the clinic. Willis grew up in Waverly Hall and chose to continue to live and work in the Columbus area.
“My job is to mentor young doctors who are first-year, second-year and third-year trainees in internal medicine so they can be internal medicine specialists and provide primary care for (the patient population),” Willis said.
He hopes the clinic enhances the foundation for the regional medical center and increases the number of primary care providers in the area. St. Francis-Emory serves Fort Moore, Columbus, Phenix City and the surrounding communities.
As internal medicine specialists, primary care will constitute more than 80% of the patients they will see, said Dr. Abbas Conteh, the chief resident.
“Having an education that equips us with the requisite training in primary care is immensely important for practice as well as for the boards,” Conteh said.
Training residents at the clinic is not only beneficial for their education, Willis said, but also serves everyone living in the region because there is a need for more primary care. It is important that physicians are trained in Columbus, he said, and then continue to stay in Columbus once their residency is completed.
Willis, along with many of his colleagues, are nearing retirement age, he said, making it imperative that primary care continues to be provided as the population grows.
A significant portion of the residents in the program are interested in staying in Columbus or returning to the region after completing a fellowship, Dr. Jessica Withey, a resident, said.
Columbus is a moderately sized town and not far from the Atlanta area, Conteh said, making it an attractive location for young doctors in the program. The region has a good patient population, he said, and there are also a number of good doctors and specialists in the area.
Conteh is thinking about returning to the city after he completes a fellowship.
“I love this town,” Jarrell said. “There is a shortage of physicians, so I think this program is definitely a big step forward to getting more doctors to stay and practice in Columbus.”
Expanding access to primary care
Willis and Rai hope doctors in the residency program will continue to live and work in the Columbus area, but they also believe the new continuity clinic will provide a solution to another problem in the short-term.
“(The clinic) provides a link to the hospital, to the emergency room and to the community,” Willis said. “And that link is for patients who don’t have a primary care provider, or who come into the hospital and have no follow-up providers.”
The ability to follow-up with patients after treating them in the hospital is one of the most important aspects of the clinic, Withey said.
“It’s nice to be able to follow them throughout their progress in an outpatient setting after we’ve just stabilized them in the hospital,” she said.
There is a large underprivileged population in the region that needs to be served, Rai said, and the clinic is part of St. Francis-Emory’s plan to meet that need.
“Residency programs generally cater to communities,” Conteh said. “People who do not have insurance, for example, can easily walk into the community hospital and walk into the resident clinic.”
As faculty, Willis will be overseeing the residents’ work at the clinic.
“Their young eyes along with my old eyes are able to do a really great job in terms of evaluating our patients,” Willis said.
The residents will be very well supervised, he said, but many don’t need very much supervision. Primary care is basic to good medical help, Willis said. The Columbus community does well with the providers it has, he said, but it needs many more physicians.
“We want to serve the community,” Rai said. “We want these younger doctors to know what it means to be doctors in the community.”
