Phoebe’s Joel Wernick receives honor from Medical College of Georgia

AUGUSTA — Joel Wernick, the longtime top administrator of Phoebe Putney Health System — home of Medical College of Georgia’s first clinical campus — was honored recently by Dean of MCG at Georgia Regents University Dr. Peter F. Buckley.

Phoebe President and CEO Joel Wernick, who has been in the position for more than a quarter of a century, received the Dean’s Community Advocate Award.

Wernick is consistently ranked by “Georgia Trend” among the 100 Most Influential Georgians. The Arkansas native is on the board of VHA-Georgia and a former board member of VHA, Inc. — a national network of not-for-profit health care organizations — the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. He chairs the Southwest Georgia Alliance for Progress, a regional coalition to strengthen economic, educational and cultural infrastructures that support Marine Corp Logistics Base-Albany.

He is also a long-time Rotarian and Paul Harris Fellow.

“This year, as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of our Southwest Campus, based at Phoebe Putney in Albany, it is absolutely appropriate that we also celebrate the contributions of Mr. Wernick, a visionary CEO, both in his community and in the larger community,” Buckley said. “He, along with Phoebe’s physicians and staff, provide exceptional support to our students, and to our efforts to educate the next generation of physicians for Georgia and beyond.”

The Southwest Campus is part of MCG’s regional campus network that has students living and learning across Georgia. The Albany-based campus has third- and fourth-year medical students working with physicians and hospitals throughout that quadrant of the state, including Albany, Tifton, Cordele, Valdosta, LaGrange, Americus, Thomasville and Columbus.

Also honored was Dr. Charles G. Howell, a Medical College of Georgia graduate and pediatric surgeon who chairs the Department of Surgery. Howell received the Professionalism Award. He is an advocate for children and families who has served as chief of the MCG Section of Pediatric Surgery for more than 20 years and chairman since 2011

Howell — who has been among the physicians from Augusta to come to Albany once a month to see pediatric patients in a specialty clinic — helped plan and develop the Children’s Hospital of Georgia, which opened in 1998.