Page 32 - South Mississippi Living - April, 2017

PEOPLE time for a change
LEAP OFFAITH
New surgeon brings training and experience to South Mississippi Surgeons
story by Susan Ruddiman photos by John Stricklin aTnd courtesy of South Mississippi Surgeons
he latest surgeon to join South Mississippi Surgeons group took a leap of faith to relocate his family and career to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Brooks Gray, M.D., F.A.C.S., moved into a new home in Ocean Springs right before Christmas.
“We planned, intended, and made it happen that we had our first Christmas on the Coast. There were a lot of boxes, but we were in our new home,” he said.
Gray and his wife, Kim, have four children — two attend the University of Mississippi, one is a sophomore at Ocean Springs High School and the youngest is in sixth grade at Ocean Springs Upper Elementary.
The family had moved from the Meridian area where Gray was in a long-standing family practice. His grandfather
and uncle were both surgeons. His grandfather, the late Leslie Rush, M.D., was instrumental in establishing Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian.
“I had a window in my career that if I was ever going to make a change, this was it. I’ve got some time left to practice, and am old enough that no one has to
hold my hand,” Gray, 50, said.
The skills he has brought to South Mississippi Surgeons are the training as a vascular surgeon as well as the experience of a general surgeon.
He is a graduate of the University of Mississippi and Tulane University School of Medicine. His general surgery residency was at the University
of Tennessee at Memphis and then — immediately after earning his undergraduate degree — he completed a vascular surgery fellowship at the University of Tennessee at Memphis.
“In my residency I worked with really talented, older fellows that I respected and admired.
They were doing vascular surgery, and that’s what prompted me to go for something a little different,” Gray said.
32 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • April 2017
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BROOKS GRAY, M.D., F.A.C.S.