ATLANTA – Deborah A. Martin, M.D., received the Medical Association of Georgia's (MAG) Jack A. Raines Humanitarian Award for 2014 during MAG's 160th House of Delegates meeting at The Lodge and Spa at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain on October 18 for her outstanding humanitarian contributions beyond the normal practice of medicine. 

In nominating her for the award, the Medical Association of Atlanta (MAA) said that, "In addition to [providing excellent] clinical care for her patients and education for doctors in training, [Dr. Martin] demonstrates a strong sense of service to the community."

MAA noted that, "Dr. Martin went to Ghana on a volunteer medical mission in 2009. Recruiting other individuals to [join her], she returned to do surgical missions the next two years. [While] these medical missions were able to help a large number of people in a short amount of time, Dr. Martin was concerned about the number of patients who were suffering from simple diseases that had progressed to debilitating conditions because they didn't have access to early or preventative medical care."

MAA also stated that Dr. Martin founded The Yonkofa Project with a former medical student, Gabriella Nanci, M.D., to build clinics in remote areas of Ghana that have limited access to health care. The clinics will be staffed by Ghanaian medical providers with assistance from foreign volunteers. MAA also pointed out that The Yonkofa Project won a Forbes.com Hand Up for Social Good Award in 2013. 

Dr. Martin trained in surgery in the Charity Hospital System that is affiliated with the Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans. She has been a general surgeon in Atlanta since 1989. Dr. Martin is affiliated with Northside Hospital in Atlanta and Cumming. She is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. And she is involved with several associations, including MAG, the Southeastern Surgical Congress, and the Georgia Surgical Society. Dr. Martin has been an MAA board member since 2001.  

Dr. Martin lives in Roswell, where she plays the piano and works with the teens at her church. She is the daughter of Annizel Martin and the late Martin Dean Martin, M.D., of Cullowhee, North Carolina – who was a professor at Western Carolina University – as well as the sister of North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Dean Martin.

With more than 7,500 members, MAG is the leading voice for the medical profession in Georgia – which includes physicians in every specialty and every practice setting. MAG membership has increased by more than 35 percent since 2010. Go to www.mag.org for additional information.