New faculty join UMMC academic ranks

Published on Monday, December 11, 2023

Medical Center leadership is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff. 

Dr. Sandhya R. Bogi

Dr. Sandhya R. Bogi, recently a hospitalist physician for St. Dominic’s Internal Medicine Group/St. Dominic Health System in Jackson, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of medicine-hospital medicine. 

She earned her Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery degree in 2005 at Gandhi Medical College in Hyderabad, India, and completed her internal medicine residency at St. Joseph Mercy Health in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  

She has served as hospitalist physician in internal medicine at North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, as director of the Advanced Practice Nurse Practitioner Fellowship at NMMC, on the Core Course Faculty for the nursing program at the Tupelo campus of Itawamba Community College and as hospitalist physician for the IHA Hospital Medicine Group at St. Joseph Health System in Ann Arbor.  

Her volunteer work experience includes the areas of endocrinology, critical care medicine, rheumatology and infectious diseases. She has participated in several poster presentations or professional journal publications and research projects.  

Board-certified in internal medicine, Bogi is a member of the American College of Physicians, Society of Hospital Medicine, American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, Physicians for American Healthcare Access, Medical Council of India and other professional organizations. 

Dr. Samuel D. Dickinson

Dr. Samuel D. Dickinson, who recently completed his Doctor of Nursing Practice-Psychiatric/Mental Health degree at UMMC, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of nursing instruction in the School of Nursing.  

Dickinson, who earned his BSN-RN degree in 2014 at UMMC, served as a charge nurse on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit and nursing preceptor for several years beginning in 2015, after his service as an RN at Select Specialty Hospital in Jackson.   

His work experience includes serving as an English teacher at the American International School of Guangzhou, China, where he was also a special consultant for the Cultural and Education Section of the British Consulate. 

Dickinson is a member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing and other professional and academic honor societies. Throughout his career, he has been recognized for his patient service and scholarship.  

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Dr. Melinda “Lindy” L. Sills

Dr. Melinda “Lindy” L. Sills, recently the director of Nursing Services at Trend Health and Rehab of Brookhaven, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of nursing instruction in the School of Nursing.  

Sills, who received her Master of Science in Nursing-Nursing Educator degree from Alcorn State University in Lorman, earned her PhD in Systems Leadership & Health Outcomes in 2016 at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. 

She has served as a Registered Nurse in labor, delivery, newborn at King’s Daughters Medical Center in Brookhaven; education coordinator for Mississippi Baptist Health Systems in Jackson; and, in Natchez, staff nurse at South Mississippi Homecare & Hospice and at Natchez Community Hospital.  

In academics, she served as an associate professor/adjunct in the School of Nursing at William Carey University in Hattiesburg; instructor for the Brookhaven-based Hurst Review Services; and on the nursing faculty at Alcorn State University, Southwest Mississippi Community College in Summit, and Mississippi College School of Nursing in Clinton. At those institutions, she served on numerous committees and in a several of advisory roles.  

Sills has a variety of scientific publications and presentations to her credit. She is a former district president of the Mississippi Nurses Association, which she has also served in a number of other leadership positions.