Patterson, Ruth W., M.D.

Education

Biography

My interested in medicine began through a pre-med summer enrichment study at Tougaloo College. I attended Medical school supported by a grant that required service to an underserved community for each year of support. I returned to Mississippi to complete residency training with the intent of serving communities within our state. Upon completion of training I staffed the pediatric department at a community health center as a part of my "pay back" commitment for educational support. This allowed me to serve the very community I had grown up in. I was then invited to return to UMC to serve as Medical director of the Newborn Nursery. This provided the dual advantage of service to the infants and families of our community as well as having the opportunity to teach and interact will most of the M3 students on their clinical newborn rotation and essentially all of the pediatric interns who rotated through. I then transitioned back into ambulatory pediatric practice for an additional 10+ years, often seeing second generations of patients I had served in the Newborn Nursery. While staffing the Newborn nursery and the ambulatory clinic we also had responsibilities to the hospital service as ward attending and again caring for patients as we taught and interacted with residents, nursing staff and students. About 2 years ago I was given the opportunity to work as part of the National Childrens Study through a NIH grant serving as clinical co-Investigator and Medical outreach, assisting in recruiting physician practices, hospitals, and participants into the study, and strategies to maintain participation within the study. UMC has afforded me the opportunity to meet all three goals of service, teaching, and research by working providing medical care to the community, teaching residents and students and experiencing participation in a National Research Study

Services & Procedures