Middle Georgia OB-GYN opens doors for patients in underserved regions

As an obstetrician/gynecologist in Middle Georgia, Dr. Keisha Callins’ work often extends beyond the walls of her doctor’s office.

Of the 159 counties in Georgia, only 82 have an OB-GYN. Callins is the only OB-GYN regularly serving Twiggs and Jones counties and splits her time between Jeffersonville and Gray each week.

Patients come from Dublin and as far as Augusta to receive care. More than half of the patients she sees are uninsured.

Callins is a part of Community Healthcare Systems Inc. — a health care network with 19 clinics and school-based health centers throughout Middle Georgia. It accepts all insurances and offers a financial assistance program.

“Finding the diagnosis is the easy part,” she said. “(But the hard part is) making sure they have the money to get it, or they have the transportation to come to me, or what kind of things in the community need to change so they can access that care.”

She says a big part of her job is advocating for her patients’ needs and directing them to additional care. If she can’t provide the necessary help, she works to find someone who can.

“Someone walks in, they share something and I can either do nothing with that information or I can make the call,” she said.

When the patient in front of her shares a problem, she often asks herself, “how many people go through that?”

For instance, Callins noticed many of her patients needed a specific probiotic that the pharmacy in Twiggs County did not carry. After talking with pharmacists, Callins helped ensure they would stock the drug.

“A patient came to me and we had a wall,” she said. “That patient helped me create a door, and that door becomes a door for everybody else.”

Callins has always gravitated towards a broader-picture approach. Her focus on improving quality of care for the whole community stems from her childhood experiences growing up in Jamaica.

Destined from a young age

Callins’ mother always said her daughter wanted to be a doctor at just six years old.

An appendix removal procedure at age eight further solidified Callins’ interest in the medical field. Her pediatrician did not take her concerns seriously at first and thought she was trying to avoid school. After the removal surgery, Callins recalled vomiting from the pain and having to sleep in it because the nurse was too busy to check on her.

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘I don’t want a child to ever experience that,’” she said.

At 16, Callins finished high school and headed to New York. A first-generation American and college student, she majored in biology at the University of Virginia.

After not getting into medical school, she juggled two jobs at a Holiday Inn during the day and evenings at Victoria Secret.

“People see you where you are now… but there are all these speed bumps along the way,” she said. “It’s not like it was a paved road.”

Callins pursued her masters in public health, specializing in health behavior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Public health is not direct patient care, she explained, but instead focuses on seeking solutions to systemic healthcare issues and healthcare accessibility. Although she didn’t know what public health was growing up, she later realized her interests have always had a particular community focus.

It wasn’t until Callins met a woman after church — who would one day be her mother-in-law — that she decided to reapply for medical school.

She attended Morehouse School of Medicine for her doctor of medicine.

Callins gave birth to her son in her third year of medical school, which delayed her graduation by six months. She ended up graduating just two days after her birthday — a bittersweet moment for Callins who had just lost a close classmate on her birthday.

Personal struggles, like loss, helped shape her, Callins said, but she has always wanted to work in rural underserved communities.

Before beginning her residency, she fell in love with women’s health and switched specialties from pediatric to obstetrics/gynecology.

“If you take care of a mom or a grandma, and they’re well, then they take care of everybody else,” she said. “When you get a woman to just feel well, her ripple effect on everything she does is just unbelievable.”

Callins had her second child, a daughter, during her residency.

Coming to Middle Georgia

Following six years of clinical practice in Albany, Callins moved to Macon in 2017 and became the chair of Mercer University’s Department of Community Medicine.

When she joined Community Healthcare Systems, Callins offered Mercer students hands-on clinical teaching opportunities either in Twiggs or Jones County.

Callins believes she can better serve her community if she is actively engaging with it. From rotary club to serving on various committees and boards, she says medicine alone can’t solve everything, so it’s important to have a pulse on what’s happening.

Understanding the struggles faced by her own community is what got her involved in serving Twiggs County, she said.

In 2018, she joined Georgia’s governor-appointed Sandra Dunagan Deal Early Language and Literacy Board. At a conference, Callins began working with a woman she sat next to by chance on a literacy grant project for Twiggs County.

At the grant meeting that followed, Callins suggested including Twiggs’ local physician in the grant process, but was shocked to find out that the county did not have a regular physician.

Callins began traveling to Twiggs County every week to serve as their local physician.

“If there’s a need for something, and it’s not there, create it,” she said.

Most recently, Governor Brian Kemp appointed Callins to the Georgia Maternal and Infant Health Advisory Commission, which will develop a report with recommendations to the legislature and governor for 2026.

Callins sees herself as a “microphone” for others’ ideas to be brought before the commission and often asks herself: “Whose voice is not here? Who’s not at this table?”

Fourteen people don’t have a 360 view of everything, she said. “If I’m the microphone, then that means I get a chance to amplify the voices around me.”

There are many voices who are qualified to speak at the table. Callins noted that although she may be the only one serving Twiggs, colleagues in other underserved areas are just as dedicated to helping their communities.

“I’m not the only ‘only one,’” she said.

Despite the demanding nature of her job, Callins never feels burdened by her responsibilities as a physician. She always tells her students to pursue a career that doesn’t feel like work.

“I get a chance to help a woman in distress or improve someone’s quality of life or help someone with their delivery… and be a part of that miracle,” she said.

Sometimes, it’s the small wins — helping a person who was denied care or connecting a patient to a new avenue of care — that remind Callins of her impact.

“There are days where I don’t think it’s gonna be fixed at the top level,” she said. “So then I just have to get down, and I have to just help the person in front of me.”