Hotz offers remedies for the ailing U.S. health care system

March 15, 2007

The man who inspired the movie ‘Doc Hollywood” will speak at Georgia Southern University Thursday, April 12, at in the Nessmith-Lane Assembly Hall. His 7 p.m. presentation, ‘Where Remedies Lie for the Ailing U.S. Health Care System,” is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health.

‘Doc Hollywood,” better known today as James A. Hotz, M.D., is a board-certified internist with decades of experience providing primary healthcare to rural and underserved populations. He volunteered for the National Health Service Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service in 1978 and helped form a community health center system (Albany Area Primary Health Care, Inc.) that now serves more than 25,000 patients in southwest Georgia.

Named one of Georgia’s 100 most powerful and influential people by Georgia Trend magazine in 1995, Hotz was selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to receive the prestigious Community Health Leadership Award for outstanding leadership in promoting grass-roots health care reform. In addition to numerous scientific articles he has published a novel, ‘Where Remedies Lie,” about his experiences as a rural doctor in southwest Georgia. According to author Neil Shuman, M.D., Hotz was an inspiration for his novel, ‘Doc Hollywood,” and the subsequent movie.

Hotz currently serves on the board of directors of the Southwest Georgia Cancer Coalition, where he is also the medical director and on the steering committee of the Georgia State Cancer Plan. He is on the Board of Health of Baker County, Georgia, and is medical director of the Baker County Emergency Medical Services. He is clinic services director for Albany Area Primary Health Care.

Hotz’s presentation is sponsored by the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public and the Campus Life Enrichment Committee. For more information contact the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health at 912-681-5653.