Dr. John Hill, ’68, retired Athens OB/GYN, honored with Distinguished Service Award

Dr. John Hill, a 1968 graduate of the Medical College of Georgia, and a retired Athens-based OB/GYN, recently won the 2019 Annual Distinguished Service Award from the Georgia Obstetrical and Gynecological Society.

Dr. Hill joined Athens Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1974 as one of a small number of OBGyns in the college town of Athens, where he spent his career in active practice caring for women, until his retirement in 2003. His outreach and activities to promote the health of women extended far beyond his local community.
His statewide involvement led him to serve as president of the Georgia OB/GYN Society in 1996 and to remain as one of the longest serving members of the board of directors for the Society. His leadership was instrumental in negotiating changes to Georgia law that ensured a woman’s ability to directly access to her OB/GYN as a primary care physician.

He also fought hard to ensure that women and their doctors make the decisions about when to leave the hospital following a vaginal or cesarean delivery with the institution of the 48 and 96-hour hospital discharge laws. This stopped, the sometimes forced, inappropriate early postpartum discharge. After his GOGS presidency and even into his retirement Dr Hill has remained active in women’s health policy. His latest campaign focused on working in partnership with the Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics as an adviser championing provision of vaccines for women at their OBGyn practices throughout Georgia. This included helping to establishing successful immunization programs for TDAP, flu and high risk HPV.

Dr. Hill’s fighting spirit and passion have benefited all the women in our state as well as their providers. His unique skills leading to successful negotiations for women’s health issues and the many legislative wins he championed throughout his career, all make Georgia a better environment for care and practice.

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