One's an Ole Miss Rebel. The other is a Georgia Bulldog.

One comes from tiny Belzoni; the other, the “big city” of Brandon.

But what they have in common better defines their lives. Both Dr. Tim Ragland and his wife, Dr. Katie Ragland, are UMMC graduates, radiologists at UMMC Grenada, and parents to newborn Emerson Rose.

The Raglands are the only husband-and-wife physician team at UMMC Grenada, where they divide their time between the main hospital campus and the hospital's Imaging Center, a nearby building where all radiological services are offered.

Two days a week, Katie travels to the Jackson campus as part of her one-year fellowship in breast imaging. The other three days, she's on duty at UMMC Grenada, a 156-bed facility that in fiscal 2015 cared for 3,053 inpatients and tallied 30,799 clinic visits.

“I always thought I'd be a big-city person. In high school, I planned to move to New York,” said Katie, 32. “I started medical school at Cornell. I liked it, but I missed home. The University of Mississippi was gracious enough to let me transfer back, and I met Tim on the first day of medical school.”

They married during their medical school training, then finished five-year residencies at UMMC in May 2016, reporting to UMMC Grenada on July 1. Their decision to practice in Grenada was an easy one, 31-year-old Tim said.

“We really liked working for UMMC, but we didn't need to stay in Jackson,” he said. “We wanted to go somewhere smaller. UMMC Grenada met our criteria, and we were thrilled to be offered jobs here.”

“I'd already decided that New York was not for me,” Katie said. “We just realized together that we wanted to be in a small town and raise our family. Grenada is about as small as we can go. It's hard for two radiologists to work in a super small town without a long commute.”

Staff at UMMC Grenada had the Raglands on their radar. “We were in our third year of residency, and they offered us the jobs. We jumped on it,” Katie said. “I was in the middle of applying for fellowships elsewhere, and I stopped the application process.

Having spent much of his career in medicine helping children battle poverty, Dr. Benard Dreyer started his visit to UMMC by encouraging future pediatricians to continue the fight.

The American Academy of Pediatrics president started Thursday by speaking with members of the Pediatric Interest Group of the University of Mississippi School of Medicine.

“Children are the poorest group in society, more so than adults and seniors,” Dreyer said to about 20 medical students over coffee and croissants. “If you look at the federal poverty level, 20 percent of our children are poor, but in Mississippi, that level is 29 percent.” 

While Dreyer's practice has been in the nation's largest city, the problems he's seen children and families face in New York - issues such as obesity from limited food choices, asthma and economic insecurity - are also prevalent in rural areas.

“Poverty,” he said, “is everywhere.”

Ways pediatricians can change children's health outcomes for the better often start with asking parents questions about transportation and access to health care and to food, Dreyer said, noting that addressing poverty and its impact on child health is one of the AAP's top priorities.

“It's really a privilege to have Dr. Dreyer come speak to us,” said Pediatric Interest Group president Logan Ramsey, a second-year medical student from Pontotoc. “There are so many issues that affect children in Mississippi that Dr. Dreyer has also encountered.”

A number of interesting events is scheduled for the upcoming week at the Medical Center.