GRU Alan Roberts, M.D. Mini-Medical School begins Oct. 6

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Topics including preventive health, lupus, organ donation and diabetes will be covered during the fall semester of the Georgia Regents University Alan Roberts, M.D. Mini-Medical School.

The lecture series by faculty from the GRU Medical College of Georgia helps educate the public about health care as it gives a taste of what medical students learn. Mini-medical school enables physicians to share knowledge with the general public in an open, comfortable forum, free of the constraints of schedules, managed care and the anxiety that often accompanies a visit to the doctor.

Classes are from 6-8 p.m. Tuesdays through Nov. 3 in the GRU Allied Health Sciences Building, Room 1204. Each evening’s program spotlights a specific medical concern. Question-and-answer time is allotted, and light refreshments are served during the mid-evening break.

Course directors are Drs. Laura and Anthony Mulloy, Glover/Mealing Eminent Scholar Chair in Immunology and chief of the Division of Nephrology, Hypertension & Transplant Medicine, and Charbonnier Professor and chief of the Division of Endocrinology, respectively.

Class dates, topics and educators are:

Oct. 6: Preventive services for men and women, Dr. Janis Coffin, medical director of the GRHealth Family Medicine Center; and travel medicine, Dr. Allen Pelletier, professor of family medicine.

Oct. 13: Cardiology, Dr. Adam Berman, director of Cardiac Arrhythmia Ablation Services at GRHealth; and lupus, Dr. Michael Madaio, Sydenstricker Professor and chairman of the MCG Department of Medicine.

Oct. 20: Multidisciplinary pituitary clinic with the MCG departments of Medicine and Neurosurgery, Dr. Max Stachura, endocrinologist and GRA Eminent Scholar in Telemedicine; and obstetrics updates, Dr. Lawrence Devoe, professor of maternal and fetal medicine.

Oct. 27: Organ donation, Tracy Ide, public affairs coordinator of LifeLink of Georgia; acute heart failure, Dr. Pascha Schafer, associate program director for cardiology and medical director of the GRHealth Cardiac Care Unit.

Nov. 3: Sunscreen, Dr. Jake Turrentine, dermatologist; diabetes, Dr. Rene Harper, associate professor of medicine and otolaryngology.

Courses are free, but preregistration is required.

For more information and to register, contact the Department of Continuing Education at 706-721-3967 or visit www.gru.edu/ce/medicalce/minimed.

The Allied Health Building is no longer accessible from 15th Street. To reach the building, you will need to take 13th Street onto campus, turn right at Laney Walker Boulevard, and turn right into the library parking lot. The Allied Health Building is the glass building at the end of the entrance to the parking lot.