Our residents can choose from a broad spectrum of specialties offered across four state-of-the-art medical centers. No matter which type of medicine you plan to practice, Wellstar residency programs provide exceptional instruction and experience.
Located 25 minutes northwest of Atlanta, Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center is one of the largest and most advanced hospitals in the state, serving as a transfer center for nearby Georgia counties and equipped with a state-of-the-art continuity clinic.
We are a Level I Trauma Center, an American College of Cardiology Accredited Chest Pain Center with Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention and an American Heart Association Joint Commission-certified Advanced Comprehensive Stroke Center. Plus, with one of the busiest emergency departments in the state—with over 120,000 annual patient visits—we have the patient acuity and volume to prepare you for any situation.
Residencies Available: Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, General Surgery, Internal Medicine, OB/GYN Medicine, Orthopedic Surgery, Palliative Medicine Fellowship, Transitional Year
Wellstar Cobb Medical Center is a 387-bed hospital located about 20 miles from downtown Atlanta that offers advanced cutting-edge technology and comprehensive care to the people of South Cobb County.
A Healthgrades 2020 Distinguished Hospital Award Recipient, Wellstar Cobb provides approximately 100,000 total inpatient days, 280,000 outpatient visits and 110,000 emergency room visits annually. Residents gain experience providing care for a diverse patient population from a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds across the hospital and its many surrounding clinics.
Residencies Available: Internal Medicine
Wellstar Douglas Medical Center is located 22 miles west of Atlanta. A Joint Commission-certified Primary Heart Attack Center and Level II Emergency Cardiac Care Center, Wellstar Douglas facilities include a 7,600-square-foot pediatric emergency department that provides specialized care for children.
Wellstar Douglas is also equipped with a brand new clinic for the family medicine residency in close proximity to the hospital. This comprehensive clinic includes 22 examination rooms; two treatment rooms equipped with casting, splint, minor surgery supplies and other resources; a family counseling room; and a conference room for lectures and meetings.
Residencies Available: Family Medicine
Wellstar Spalding Medical Center is a primary training location located 40 miles south of Atlanta, in Griffin. With an award-winning EMS, Joint Commission-designated Primary Stroke Center, surgical services and fast track minor, Wellstar Spalding provides comprehensive and personalized care.
We proudly serve the Griffin community where we encounter a wide mix of diverse patients with a variety of health concerns. This provides our residents with ample opportunity to develop clinical skills in an ambulatory setting. The Internal Medicine Continuity Clinics at Wellstar GME operate under close supervision by clinic faculty who support and guide our residents.
Residencies Available: Internal Medicine
Business Resource Groups and Inclusion Councils represent Wellstar by serving as ambassadors and champions of the health system’s diversity, equity and inclusion strategy. Their strategic programming for physicians and team members builds cultural competency and increases awareness of the healthcare and wellness needs of our diverse patient, team member and community populations. The Wellstar Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging supports and advises the systemwide Business Resource Groups and location-specific Inclusion Councils.
The wonderful experiences and the great people in my program provided me the opportunity and support to forge my own path. Because of that I am now able to set myself up to obtain all the goals that I had hoped for.
Wellstar provides great exposure to a wide breadth of cases, both in quantity and quality. The progressive autonomy of the program was appealing to me as an applicant who wanted to become a competent general surgeon after five years of training.
Dr. Erica Sutton joined Wellstar Health System on March 31, 2025, as its first Vice President of Academic Affairs. Wellstar Health System is a network of 11 hospitals, 5 health parks, and over 30,000 employees. As the VP of Academic Affairs, she will lead strategic growth for research, medical student and resident learners, the development of career pathways in healthcare, and the recent partnership between Wellstar and the Medical College of Georgia.
Dr. Sutton is a graduate of Indiana University, where she triple-majored in psychology, chemistry, and mathematics prior to entering the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She completed her residency in general surgery at the University of Maryland, followed by a fellowship in minimally invasive surgery at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Department of Surgery in Baltimore.
Dr. Sutton is president and founder of Surgery on Sunday Louisville (SOSL), a nonprofit she founded in 2013 to provide free surgery to people who are uninsured or underinsured. Currently, SOSL is providing educational services in Atlanta, Georgia, and Louisville, Kentucky.
Jim Shehy is nationally board certified as a training administrator for graduate medical education and has been with Wellstar Kennestone’s Graduate Medical Education Department from its inception. From the first Wellstar Sponsoring Institution application and first two residency programs, Jim now oversees Wellstar Kennestone’s seven residency programs and one fellowship with a highly qualified team of program coordinators for each of its eight medical specialty programs.
Jim earned his Bachelors of Science from Youngstown State University in Ohio before earning his Juris Doctorate Degree from the University of Akron School of Law. After graduation Jim worked with a nationally renowned nonprofit organization that brought him to Georgia. During his time in Georgia, he found the healthcare environment exciting and attractive and moved into operations within the medical field in Southeast Georgia before eventually coming to Wellstar Kennestone in the summer of 2011.
Dr. George Brown has been the program director of the Wellstar Douglas Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program since 2010. He received his medical degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was an AOA graduate. Dr. Brown completed his family medicine residency at the University of Virginia Hospital, Charlottesville, where he received the Mead Johnson National Award of Excellence for family medicine residents.
He has his boards in both family medicine and geriatrics. Dr. Brown has been voted Top Doc about 20 times, most recently in Atlanta Magazine and Medicine and Doctors magazine.
Dr. Byrd received her undergraduate degree in biology/pre-medicine from Florida A&M University and her medical degree from Meharry Medical College. She completed residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas at Houston Health Sciences Center.
After residency, she returned to serve on the faculty at Meharry Medical College. Before coming to Wellstar, Dr. Byrd advanced to the rank of associate professor at University of Texas Health at McGovern Medical School where she served as both residency program director and clerkship director.
Dr. Byrd’s clinical focus as an academic generalist has been in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, office gynecology and minimally invasive gynecologic surgery. She currently serves on the ACOG District IV Committee on Health Equity and Respectful Care, CREOG Executive Council, the Georgia Obstetrical and Gynecological Society (GOGS) Advisory Board, and on the Georgia Perinatal Quality Collaborative as the maternal co-chair and health equity liaison.
Her most recent initiatives are aimed at reducing Black maternal mortality through focusing on cardiac disease. Dr. Byrd is dedicated to improving the training of future OB/GYN physicians and working diligently to create a more inclusive work environment while eliminating disparities in healthcare.
Dr. Gordon started her training in the UK, where she graduated from the University of Manchester. She pursued training in medicine obtaining MRCP (Edi). She pursued further training in acute care before moving to the United States for more training. She completed internal medicine training at St. John Medical Center in Detroit, and was appointed chief resident before pursuing a hospice and palliative fellowship at Cleveland Clinic. Following her fellowship, she came to Wellstar and has worked in palliative care consults for over 10 years. Her research interests include increasing scholarly activity in a community palliative setting, resident well-being, and quality improvement. She is VitalTalk faculty, EPEC trainer, a member of the item writing task force for the ABIM Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship board exam, and a fellow of the AAHPM.
Dr. Headrick is board certified in internal medicine. She joined Wellstar in 2017 and has played an instrumental role in the program since June 2018, when she was recruited to become the associate program director for ambulatory services and the medical director of the Wellstar GME Internal Medicine Clinic in Marietta.
A decorated educator, she has received several awards since joining the faculty, including Ambulatory Teacher of the Year (2018) and recognition for the Grand Rounds Presentation of the Year for her presentation on medical cannabis in 2020. She was recognized by the Georgia Chapter of the American College of Physicians as the Early Career Physician of the Year in 2019.
Dr. Headrick is a graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Memphis. She completed her internal medicine residency training at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine in Knoxville in 2009, where she also served as chief resident. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians as well as a member of the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine, the Society for General Internal Medicine and the AMA. Prior to joining Wellstar, Dr. Headrick practiced primary care general internal medicine in Waco, Texas, and Knoxville, Tennessee, for more than eight years. Her clinical interests include hypertension, diabetes and social determinants of health.
Currently, Dr. Becher is a teaching faculty member with the orthopedic trauma service at Wellstar. He covers multiple hospitals and has been the associate program director at Wellstar Kennestone. Dr. Becher is passionate about resident education and believes that being part of the graduate medical education process is one of the highest callings a physician can have. It keeps him engaged and young, working with the next generation of surgeons, and Dr. Becher is always proud of the graduates our program produces. Dr. Becher is a husband and a father, and family life takes up much of his remaining time outside of clinical and administrative duties. Once upon a time, Dr. Becher was an avid skydiver and pilot, but the sky, while it always calls, will have to wait its turn.
Originally from India, Dr. Ashok Kanugula relocated to the United States after completing his medical education at Rangaraya Medical College in India. He completed his internal medicine residency at Mercy Catholic Medical Center, Drexel University Philadelphia and is board certified in internal medicine and obesity medicine. In addition, Dr. Kanugula earned a master’s in public health from Missouri State University, holds fellowships with the American College of Physicians and the Academy of Physicians in Clinical Research and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review. He is also a member of the American College of Physicians, the Scientific Research Honor Society and the American Association of Physician Leaders.
Following residency, Dr. Kanugula served as a hospitalist at Miami Valley Hospital and a clinical assistant professor at Wright State University. Subsequently, he held the position of associate program director at the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Hurley Medical Center, Michigan State University. In 2021, Dr. Kanugula joined Wellstar as the founding program director to establish the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Wellstar Spalding Medical Center.
Dr. Kington is a proud graduate of the Atlanta Medical Center general surgery program. She completed her fellowship at Augusta University in surgical critical care before returning to AMC to practice in general, trauma and acute care surgery.
Upon returning to AMC, Dr. Kington took on the role of associate program director under Dr. Philip Ramsay. At the time of the hospital closure, Dr. Kington was instrumental in completing the transfer of the residency program to Kennestone.
Dr. Kington completed her medical education at East Tennessee State University. She is an active member of the Association of Program Directors in Surgery, with a position on the global surgery taskforce committee. She is also a member of the Southeastern Surgical Congress and the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, and she is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
With a passion to ensure everyone has access to world-class trauma care, Dr. Kington is an active course director of Advanced Trauma Life Support. Her research interests include access to and disparities in medical care, as well as resident wellness. She lives with her husband and two children in the Old Fourth Ward, where she is an active member of the community and a board member of the Hope-Hill Foundation.
Dr. Louis Lovett is the associate designated institutional official for graduate medical education at Wellstar in addition to being the Wellstar Cobb Medical Center internal medicine program director.
At Wellstar, Dr. Lovett has also the served as the physician leader of quality and patient safety and works on the clinical documentation team, addressing denials and peer-to-peer reviews.
Dr. Lovett earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University in Chicago as well as a bachelor’s degree from the University of Perugia in Perugia, Italy. He earned a doctorate in medicine from the University Of Turin School of Medicine, in Turin, Italy. He returned to the United States for his primary care internal medicine residency and a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in Farmington. He also completed a fellowship in lung transplant at Emory University School of Medicine. He is board certified in pulmonary medicine and internal medicine. He is a fellow of both the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians.
Dr. Lovett previously served as clinical professor with the Department of Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. He also served as the medical staff president and chair of the Department of Medicine at Atlanta Medical Center, where he earned multiple Outstanding Educator awards and has published a variety of articles in his specialty.
Dr. Gabriella Maris received her medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina College of Medicine in Charleston, South Carolina, and completed her family medicine residency at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
She is passionate about LGBTQIA primary care, serving as the medical director for Wellstar’s LGBTQ+ primary care. Dr. Maris is also dedicated to medical student education, serving as Wellstar Douglas Family Medicine’s clerkship director. Her current faculty appointments include clinical assistant professor at the Medical College of Georgia and clinical preceptor for Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. She is a mom of two, an avid exerciser, lifelong vegetarian and loves teaching.
Dr. Viktoria Nurpeisov earned her bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University in Atlanta. She received her medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and completed her residency at Atlanta Medical Center. Her commitment to excellence led her to complete a geriatric medicine fellowship at Emory University in Atlanta, earning dual board certifications in family medicine and geriatrics.
She is a board-certified geriatrician and certified medical director of Cobb A.G. Rhodes Nursing Home. Dr. Nurpeisov is certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. She also is a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Geriatrics Society. Currently she practices at Wellstar Family Medicine GME Smyrna Clinic, and she serves as the program director of Wellstar Kennestone Family Medicine Residency Program.
Dr. Nurpeisov’s passion lies in stress management, group facilitation and educational programming focusing on physician well-being. Beyond her professional life, Dr. Nurpeisov enjoys deep-sea fishing, gardening and cherishing moments with her family.
Dr. Zhu graduated from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. She then completed residency training in internal medicine at University of North Carolina Hospitals and has been practicing hospital medicine ever since.
Dr. Zhu joined Wellstar more than 10 years ago. In addition to being the program director for the Wellstar Kennestone Transitional Year Residency Program, Dr. Zhu is one of the teaching faculty for inpatient medicine at Wellstar Kennestone. She is the immediate past president for Greater Cobb County Medical Society for 2023. Currently, she serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Hospital Medical Education (AHME). She is also the chair for the Council of Transitional Year Program Director at AHME.
Her other professional interests include developing curriculums for QIPS and perioperative medicine, healthcare advocacy and physician wellness. Dr. Zhu is the clinical assistant professor at the Medical College of Georgia.
We recognize that your residency is truly the start of your medical career. As such, we offer attractive compensation packages, starting with highly competitive salaries complemented by a full suite of benefits.
Available to full-time employees at no cost, these benefits include basic employee life insurance, basic personal accident insurance and long-term disability coverage.
Choose from comprehensive options in all three areas. You have 31 days beginning on your date of hire/rehire to enroll. Your coverage will begin on the first day of the month following 30 days of continuous full-time or eligible part-time employment.
Full-time employees may purchase short-term and critical illness coverage. You have 31 days beginning on your date of hire/rehire to enroll. Your coverage will begin on the first day of the month following 30 days of continuous full-time or eligible part-time employment.
Life insurance and accidental death and dismemberment insurance are available to you, your spouse and your children. You have 31 days beginning on your date of hire/rehire to enroll. Your coverage will begin on the first day of the month following 30 days of continuous full-time or eligible part-time employment.
Set aside pre-tax dollars for out-of-pocket medical and dependent care expenses. You have 31 days beginning on your date of hire/rehire to enroll. Your coverage will begin on the first day of the month following 30 days of continuous full-time or eligible part-time employment.
Build your savings and secure your future with our 50-cent match on each dollar you contribute, up to 4% of eligible pay, and an annual contribution of up to 4% of eligible pay. The contributions you make to the plan are always yours to keep. After you’ve worked for Wellstar for three years, you’ll be 100% vested in the company’s contributions.
For more benefits, perks and ways Wellstar supports employees, visit the Wellness & Benefits page.
Visit Wellness & BenefitsWhen you become a Wellstar resident, you’re joining a community of passionate and hardworking physicians dedicated to delivering the highest quality of care for our community. Our experienced teaching faculty will guide you throughout your residency, sharing their knowledge, skills and advice to help you become a well-rounded leader in your field.
We invite you to review our requirements and standards for applying to our programs.
All applicants must be U.S. citizens or have a valid U.S. Permanent Resident Card or a J1 Visa sponsored by ECFMG. Wellstar does not sponsor visas.
Applicants must also be a graduate or pending graduate of the following schools:
We also accept applications from graduates of a medical school outside the U.S. or Canada who meet at least one of the following requirements:
In addition, all applicants must qualify for a full or unrestricted education limited license in the state of Georgia. Before applying, you must be registered to participate in the National Residency Match Program (NRMP); no program positions will be offered outside of the NRMP. Once registered, you can submit your application through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS).
You must submit the following documentation through ERAS to be considered for our program:
