Northeast Georgia Medical Center Announces Accreditation for Emergency Medicine Residency Program

Published: Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC) has received initial accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) for its Emergency Medicine residency program.

This is NGMC’s fourth Graduate Medical Education (GME) program to receive initial accreditation, following the February 2019 announcement about the Family Medicine residency program.

“NGMC is the bedrock for emergency care in our region, as evidenced by the more than 200,000 emergency department visits across our hospitals each year,” said John E. Delzell, Jr., MD, MSPH, FAAFP vice president of Medical Education for Northeast Georgia Health System and Designated Institutional Official for NGMC. “We look forward to training future generations of physicians and retaining the best and brightest to care for our community.”

NGMC anticipates interviewing approximately 180 Emergency Medicine residency candidates from October 2021 through January 2022. Twelve residents will match with NGMC through the National Residency Matching Program in March 2022, and they will begin their first day of residency on July 1, 2022.

“This accreditation comes after months of hard work from our entire team,” said Josh Mugele, MD, Emergency Medicine program director. “We’re excited to train world-class physicians that will have all the tools necessary to care for the patients in northeast Georgia as well as to pursue any career niche in Emergency Medicine – whether it’s leadership, research, advocacy, education or administration.”

The Emergency Medicine residency program at NGMC received ACGME accreditation by successfully completing surveys that include evaluations of program personnel, faculty, institutional safety and quality metrics, curriculum, the learning and working environment and more.

The accreditation process for NGMC’s Emergency Medicine residency program was led by Dr. Josh Mugele; Dr. Kathryn West, Emergency Medicine associate program director; Tia Prather, Emergency Medicine residency program coordinator; Dr. Delzell; and Donna Brown, director of GME.

NGMC plans to continue expanding its GME program by seeking accreditation for two additional specialties: OB/GYN and psychiatry. By 2024, all six specialties could host more than 200 residents – which would make the program one of the largest in the state of Georgia.

For more information about NGMC’s Emergency Medicine residency program, visit www.ngmcgme.org/programs/emergency-medicine.