Former Phoebe Cancer Center medical director receives Lamartine Hardman Cup

ALBANY — Dr. Phillip Roberts, formerly the medical director of the Phoebe Cancer Center, received the Lamartine Hardman Cup during a ceremony that took place in Savannah on Saturday in conjunction with the Medical Association of Georgia’s (MAG) 161st House of Delegates meeting, officials with MAG announced Tuesday.

Officials with MAG said the award is given to a physician who “has solved an outstanding problem in public health or made a discovery in surgery or medicine or a contribution to the science of medicine.” The Dougherty County Medical Society nominated him for the award, saying Roberts deserved the honor because he was the “founding father” of hematology and oncology services in the Albany area, MAG said.

While he was the medical director of the cancer center at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Roberts is credited with taking steps to ensure that breakthrough treatments were available to all patients, including the uninsured. When the second tower of the hospital opened in 2009, it became home to the Phillip Roberts, M.D. Cancer Pavilion.

After working in private practice in Albany for a decade, Roberts joined the cancer center in 1990 and became the medical director before retiring in December 2014 at the age of 73. Among those at the retirement celebration included Linda Van der Merwe, vice president of oncology services at Phoebe; Dr. Chuck Mendenhall, medical director of Phoebe’s radiation oncology department; longtime colleague Dr. Edward Oleen; outgoing Dougherty County Commission Chair Jeff “Bodine” Sinyard, and Joe Austin, chief operating officer of Phoebe Putney Health System.

Oleen, the second oncologist to be hired at Phoebe after Roberts, presented a portrait of Roberts upon his retirement last year, while Sinyard presented a proclamation on behalf of the city of Albany and Dougherty County.

Roberts earned his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta in 1962 after dropping out of veterinary school to pursue a degree in medicine. While doing an internal medicine residency, he got attached to hematology — at a time when there was no such thing as oncology — and ultimately brought his talents to Southwest Georgia.

He lives in Albany with his wife, Priscilla Roberts.

MAG said the award was named for Dr. Lamartine Hardman, who was Georgia’s governor from 1927-31 and was a physician, entrepreneur and farmer from Jackson County.