The Neurosurgery Department at MCG Health System is now providing services to patients at St. Joseph Hospital. MCG physicians will perform spine and back procedures on the campus of St. Joseph Hospital, while cranial procedures will be transferred to the MCG Medical Center. Once treatment is complete, the patients will be referred back to their St. Joseph physician for continuity of care and other required ancillary services. This coverage began April 18, 2005, with MCG physicians providing services at St. Joseph on Mondays. The MCG Neurosurgery Department recently became the exclusive provider of neurosurgical services at Aiken Regional Medical Center.

St. Joseph Hospital is a member of Ascension Health, the nation’s largest Catholic and nonprofit health system with more than 100,000 associates serving in 67 acute care hospitals and dozens of related facilities in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Consistent with its mission to serve all people with special attention to those who are poor and vulnerable, Ascension Health provides clinically excellent care with an emphasis on innovation and a focus on transforming the healthcare industry.

MCG Health System is composed of three separate organizations -- MCG Health, Inc. and the clinical services offered by the faculty employees of the Medical College of Georgia and the members of the Physicians Practice Group. The physicians of MCG Health System are community physicians, faculty employees of the Medical College of Georgia, and employees of the Physicians Practice Group, not employees of MCG Health Inc. MCG Health, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation operating the MCG Medical Center, MCG Children’s Medical Center, the MCG Sports Medicine Center, MCG Ambulatory Care Center, the Georgia Radiation Therapy Center and related clinical facilities and services. MCG Health, Inc. was formed to support the research and education mission of the Medical College of Georgia and to build the economic growth of the CSRA, the state of Georgia and the Southeast by providing an environment for faculty employees of the Medical College of Georgia and the Physicians Practice Group and community physicians to deliver the highest level of primary and specialty health care. For more information, please visit www.MCGHealth.org.