Macon Magazine

April/May 2025 | maconmagazine.com 55 RIGHT Memories from the 1979 Southwest High School yearbook, where Montgomery Rice was Homecoming Queen, participated as a cheerleader, and was an honor graduate. increasing the economics by $1.3 million a year, based on the number of jobs they produce in their practice and jobs that indirectly are produced because of the businesses that surround their practice. Then we see fewer days of missed work because people are healthy." When Montgomery Rice notes that education is the equalizer – a phrase she says often – she means it. "You ask yourself, what's the connection between socioeconomic status and health? It really is education, because as people become more educated, they actually improve their socioeconomic status. They have more choice, they are more informed, they make diff erent decisions that lead to good health." Educators bridge the gap between clinical settings and communities. "We also have to recognize, very importantly, that medicine is a team sport," Montgomery Rice noted. Seeing women in their fullness An example is maternal mortality, a crisis in Georgia that MM covered extensively in the December/ January issue. Education and workforce development that focus on health equity are critical in turning around the crisis, where Black women face twice the maternal mortality rate as non-Hispanic white women. "It empowers women to understand that they have a choice. They are the decision maker of what's going to happen to them in the future," said Montgomery Rice on education. "Once a woman chooses to become pregnant, what is the experience that she has? It matters who her provider is. We want them to be culturally competent and possess humility so that they see that woman in their fullness." Montgomery Rice believes that connectivity built between a patient and a provider can help catch deadly issues, like hypertension, that occur in the postpartum period. Another prescient issue for maternal health that Montgomery Rice advocates for is reproductive choice. "I think all women who are sitting in leadership roles in corporations, in medical schools, or the leadership role in their home – all of them are concerned about reproductive justice in one way or another. There's no way in this country that you can be a woman and also be a mother, a sister, or aunt etc. to women and not be concerned," she said. "When they get pregnant, how they get pregnant, how many children they have – those are choices that should never be taken away from women. That is one of the critical issues that then bleeds into, unfortunately, what are my educational opportunities going to be? What are my opportunities going to be for me to sit in these roles that allow me to be a leader?" She continued: "I think a large part of it begins with the reproductive choices that we have as women." One way MSM is combating the maternal mortality crisis is by looking towards a nursing program, with a doctorate in nurse-midwifery as their fi rst planned focus. This would give women more fl exible choices for a provider, which might empower their health during pregnancy. The right to sit at the table Montgomery Rice has an approach that is working, as she marks the 50th anniversary of MSM and passes a decade as president and dean. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote: "She has dramatically increased the number of medical students and has elevated the university's role in working to help solve some of the biggest health equity problems of our time." The dramatic increase has nearly doubled the number of students that attended MSM before Montgomery Rice's tenure, and they hope to double it again over the next decade to 225. She's also been a prolifi c fundraiser, exponentially increasing yearly giving numbers by millions. "What I've been most impressed with is that our mission has not changed over these 50 years," Montgomery Rice said, "though leading the creation and advancement of health equity has evolved to achieve health justice. The reason for that is

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