Atlanta, Emory University,
and The Department of Medicine

Atlanta is one of the most rapidly growing cities in the South because of its pleasant climate, a relatively low cost of living compared to other cities with excellent medical training programs, and the availability of many outside diversions. Visit the Atlanta Links section of this site to explore the many attractions that Atlanta offers.

Home to over 3.5 million people, Atlanta was the host city for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. The city has excellent sports (competitive, professional and amateur teams in football, basketball, hockey, tennis, baseball), arts and music (the High Museum, Atlanta Symphony, Atlanta Ballet, Off-Broadway plays, concerts), and outdoor activities (the largest city-wide tennis league in the nation, two large lakes within 50 miles, mountains within 100 miles, and ocean beaches within 200 miles). Public schools in selected areas of Atlanta are excellent and private schools are also available.

Emory University was founded at Oxford, Georgia in 1836 and moved to Atlanta in 1919. The campus, located seven miles east of downtown Atlanta and covering 550 acres of gently rolling, forested hills, is home to 8,000 students. The national headquarters for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and for the American Cancer Society are adjacent to the Emory University campus.

Emory University School of Medicine was formed by the merger of three Atlanta medical schools in 1915. It is the cornerstone of the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center. The clinics and hospitals of this center, with 3,000 inpatient beds and one million annual outpatient visits, create an exceptionally rich clinical environment for 800 house officers, 500 medical students and 587 faculty to engage in teaching, patient care and research activities. Over one-third of all medical care in Atlanta is in facilities associated with Emory University School of Medicine.

The Department of Medicine of Emory University School of Medicine, headed by Wayne Alexander, M.D., Ph.D., is committed to the teaching of medicine, the creation of new knowledge through research, and the delivery of excellent patient care. There are 345 full-time faculty, 160 house officers and 108 fellows. It is a young, vigorous, growing department, nationally recognized for academic and clinical excellence. The internal medicine program and the training program in pulmonary and critical care medicine are centered in five hospital settings which provide a large and varied patient population: city/county (Grady Memorial Hospital), tertiary referrals (Emory University Hospital), veterans (Atlanta V.A. Medical Center), community (Crawford Long Hospital of Emory University), and geriatric (Wesley Woods Geriatric Hospital).