MD-MPH grad hopes to put at-risk communities first

Graduation from medical school is a great achievement as it demonstrates a person’s commitment to helping people live healthier lives.

When an MD adds a Master of Public Health degree to their resume, it signifies that the person not only wants to help people but also their larger communities. An MPH can open new perspectives for doctors to focus on health at the community level, influencing greater change.

That desire to help a larger group of people is what inspired Tommy Bui to pursue Augusta University’s MD-MPH program through the Medical College of Georgia and AU’s School of Public Health. The program allows medical students to use their final year at MCG to pursue a specialized focus, in Bui’s case the MPH track.

It’s an experience that afforded him the chance to learn about what it takes to go from treating a single person in a clinic to establishing community clinics in areas that are in desperate need of help.

Knowing from an early age

Bui knew from an early age that he not only wanted to be a doctor, but that he wanted to be an ophthalmologist after he saw his aunt suffer the effects of uncontrolled diabetes and how it developed into diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy occurs when a person’s blood sugar gets too high and damages the blood vessels in the eyes. This can result in the retina being pulled away from the back of the eye, leading to blindness if left untreated.

Growing up in the state of Georgia, Bui knew the best path for him to help people like his aunt was attending the state’s flagship medical college, the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

“Going to medical school at MCG has always been a big dream of mine. It was so awesome when I got in because I had watched my parents sacrifice a lot for my sister and me to follow our passions,” said Bui, a first-generation college graduate. “I made sure to just hit the ground running when I started because I knew I wanted to do ophthalmology based on my experiences during my gap year.”

Between graduating from his undergraduate program at the University of Georgia and matriculating to MCG, Bui took a gap year to gain valuable experience working at Children’s Eye Care and Surgery of Georgia in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. He began at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, working the front desk, but he demonstrated determination with his goal always at the forefront of his mind, eventually working his way into the role of a scribe for Stephen M. Lipsky, MD.

“Tommy quickly demonstrated a passion for everything clinical. He has a skillful calm about him that made parents and patients feel at ease,” Lipsky said. “He recognizes the unique and wonderful facets of our field and has immersed himself in passionately moving in that direction. I have no doubts that Tommy will be a leader in pediatric ophthalmology for his entire career. His passion is exciting to observe. I am excited that he has garnered a top ophthalmology residency position, and we are so proud that perhaps the influence of Children’s Eye Care and Surgery on Tommy will play a role in all he will do for so many.”

During that gap-year experience, he really began to key in on the struggles that many people have in accessing the care they need.

Getting involved early

Once he arrived at MCG, Bui wasted no time getting involved with the free student-run clinics offered through MCG. There are 15 student-run clinics at the medical school, offering students plenty of opportunities to get involved with different groups within the Augusta community while gaining valuable experience. It’s also one of the best ways for medical students to have an impact on community health.

“As a first-year medical student, we have a lot of opportunities to do service, and that’s sort of where my passion for public health and community health started,” Bui said.

While the free clinic he was working in was mostly aimed at primary care, he was able to take his passion for ophthalmology and apply it to other areas as well. When he dug deeper into the stats, he knew he needed to do something.

According to a 2021 release by the Georgia Optometric Association, over 1 million people in Georgia have diabetes, and, according to Prevent Blindness Georgia, diabetic retinopathy is the most common diabetic eye disease and the leading cause of blindness in people 20 to 74 years of age. An estimated 7.7 million people ages 40 and older have diabetic retinopathy, and, by 2030, that number is expected to increase to approximately 11 million people.

The School of Public Health’s annual Healthy Georgia Report shows Georgia has the 12th highest rate of diabetes in the United States. Of those living in rural areas in Georgia, 17.5% have been diagnosed with diabetes, compared to 12.3% of those living in urban settings of the state. Similarly, 17% of those living below the federal poverty level have diabetes, while 12.1% above the poverty line have been diagnosed with diabetes.

“I saw a need for eye care for the patients at the free clinics in Augusta. Georgia not only has a huge problem with diabetic retinopathy, but it has one of the worst rankings in terms of patient accessibility for patients with diabetic retinopathy,” Bui said. “In the counties where our four-year campuses are, we have rates for diabetic retinopathy and visually threatening diabetic retinopathy that are higher than the national average and higher than other counties in the state. Most of these patients who have worse diabetic retinopathy belong to vulnerable populations that our free clinics serve.”

Addressing this need became his passion project, and it took another step forward during his second year when he and a group of his fellow students entered AU’s annual Innovate Pitch Competition.

Pitching an idea

The Innovate Pitch Competition is a dynamic and exciting platform, designed to seamlessly connect students’ groundbreaking discoveries and innovative ideas with real-world opportunities. Competition prize money can also provide resources to help make their ideas a reality.

During the 2022 competition, Bui, along with fellow medical students Katerina Massengale, William Bedinger, Brooke Amero, Nisha Kashyap, Samatha Fraime, Susan Fields and Daniel Herrera, took home third place with their project “iHealth Window App: An app-based solution to protect vision and health in the community.” Under the guidance of MCG faculty adviser David Kozlowski, PhD, the group created a mobile app platform aimed at helping primary care doctors have all the information they need to do an initial assessment on a patient’s eyes right from their phone.

“Their product was largely conceived by Tommy and driven by his passion for improving community-based vision screenings,” said Kozlowski, director of the Brain and Behavior Module and the Medical Neuroscience Component in the medical school curriculum, as well as Bui’s case-based learning preceptor. “Subsequently, Tommy and his group received a financial donation that they used to acquire specialized equipment for patient eye exams and screening in one of their student-run clinics. As Tommy begins his ophthalmology residency at the Casey Eye Institute of Oregon Health Science University, there is no doubt that he will quickly become a valued colleague and community health advocate in the Portland area. It was truly a pleasure to have contributed to his education and training in Augusta.”

When Bui’s team took third, Kozlowski was awarded a monetary prize as well, which he turned around and donated it back to one of the medical school’s free clinics.

“He knew it was something we were passionate about, and it was great because he has had faith in what we are doing from the very beginning,” Bui said.

From Augusta to Savannah

The Medical College of Georgia has a statewide network of campuses, including regional clinical campuses for third- and fourth-year students, a four-year campus in Athens in partnership with the University of Georgia and another four-year campus in Savannah in partnership with Georgia Southern University. This affords MCG students plenty of opportunities to train in numerous clinics across the state, including many in areas of great need.

Bui spent his pre-clerkship, or the first 18 months of his time at MCG, at the main campus in Augusta before he was selected to transition to Savannah and the Southeast Clinical Campus for the next 18 months. While Savannah and the surrounding area have seen significant growth in recent years, it is also one of the areas most in need of physicians.

“I have had the opportunity to observe Tommy’s development over the past three years and can say without hesitation he is the one of the most exceptional students I have had the privilege of teaching over the course of my career,” said Elizabeth Gray, MD, founding dean of MCG’s Savannah campus and formerly the associate dean at the Southeast Clinical Campus. “Tommy demonstrates a knowledge base and commitment to excellence that stand out from his peers. He has a rare ability to be exemplary in all areas: his dedication to medicine, his high academic achievement, his strong participation in research and his high level of service to the community. In every setting, Tommy shows exceptional promise as a leader in the field of medicine. Notably, he was able to balance his excellent academic performance with contributions in service, leadership and scholarship.”

The move presented Bui with a prime opportunity to leave his mark on the area by taking what he had learned at the established clinics in Augusta and translating that to Savannah. In particular, he focused on monthly eye exams.

“In Augusta, we partnered with Prevent Blindness Georgia out of Atlanta, and they would bring a mobile unit to set up eye exams once a month at the Walton Options for Independent Living,” Bui said. “On top of that, since the primary care clinics happen every two weeks, we would go into the primary care clinic and do more preliminary screenings of those patients, and we were able to triage. The patients who really need to see an eye doctor soon, we could get them to our own clinic at Walton Options for a full eye exam. We also helped them fill out the necessary paperwork, and we even accompanied them to their appointments to help get them to see an ophthalmologist or retina specialist, whatever they needed.”

By taking what he learned in the Augusta clinics, Bui developed an evidence-based retinopathy screening program for patients at the St. Mary’s Health Center, which became the cornerstone for his MPH capstone.

“It’s been awesome to work on this project and get credit for my passion while learning more about public health and how to correctly help communities from our professors,” Bui said.

“Tommy began his journey in the MD-MPH program in fall 2023, starting with my Introduction to Environmental Health course,” said Tran Nguyen, DPH, associate professor in the Department of Health Management, Economics, and Policy in AU’s School of Public Health. “As the semester progressed, witnessing Tommy’s deepening passion for public health was inspiring. The following semester, in the Health Promotion class, he eagerly shared an exciting internship opportunity with a group practice to launch a community-based vision screening program at St. Mary’s Health Center in Savannah. Tommy was determined to translate the theoretical knowledge from his health promotion class into a meaningful, real-world impact. Ultimately, he transformed his internship into an impressive capstone project. I look forward to seeing all the great things he will undoubtedly continue to accomplish in the future.”

While treating his current patients was always at the forefront of Bui’s project, he wanted to find a way to continue to help the citizens of Georgia by collecting data that could be analyzed to better understand the trends in rural Georgia.

“Literature relies on public data, and a lot of it is based on insurance claims, but sometimes that kind of data can underrepresent people without insurance and underrepresented groups are especially vulnerable to diabetic retinopathy,” Bui said. “We wanted to be able to study and really understand how we can improve our processes, but we also want to see if there’s any difference between the patients we’re seeing and what’s usually published in the literature.”

Traveling the globe to gain experience

On top of his work in and around Savannah, Bui was able to travel extensively over the last year of his medical school journey. His travels took him to New York for a neuro-ophthalmology away rotation at Columbia. He then traveled down to Lexington, Kentucky, for a general ophthalmology rotation at the University of Kentucky.

He even had the opportunity to present about diabetic retinopathy at the American Society of Retina Specialists conference in Sweden. His co-presenters on the project included Sister Pat Baber, the head of free clinics for St. Joseph’s Candler, which includes St. Mary’s; Maria Calderon, manager for the St. Mary’s Health Center; Gabriel Siddiqui, volunteer coordinator for the diabetic retinopathy screenings; and Henry Crossey, MD, the volunteer tele-ophthalmologist for the screenings.

“It was really humbling because you feel really accomplished when you go to these sorts of things and you have your abstract accepted,” Bui said. “It was awesome because I was able to present our poster and answer questions from researchers from around the world, like Denmark, where they have done national studies with diabetic retinopathy, and they’ve had screening programs just like ours. It was great to share what we’re doing in Savannah and have people all around the world comment and give us their perspective on what they’re doing.”

Upon his return to the United States, Bui went to Madison, Wisconsin, for another ophthalmology rotation before spending the following month at Emory in Atlanta. His final trip took him to Portland, Oregon, and the Casey Eye Institute of Oregon Health Science University, where he ultimately matched.

“Tommy has been very focused on a career in ophthalmology since entering medical school and even expressed an interest in pediatric ophthalmology. In addition to excellent academic performance, Tommy has been very adept at professional networking, which is a cornerstone of collaboration and organizational leadership,” said Steven E. Brooks, MD, the William S. Hagler, MD Distinguished Chair in Ophthalmology, co-director of the James and Jean Culver Vision Discovery Institute at MCG and director of the Wellstar MCG Health Eye Clinics. “He was instrumental in helping to develop our community vision screening and service initiatives in Augusta and Savannah, which is an ambitious and multifaceted effort to provide high-quality eye and vision screening services to underserved communities in conjunction with education, research, and advocacy. I’m hoping Tommy will continue to be involved in community health initiatives in his career, and hopefully here in Georgia. The clinical training he will get at the Oregon Health Sciences Center is outstanding, and, together with the experience and training he has gotten at AU and MCG, he will be well prepared to lead.”