Georgia ranks fifth in the country in jobs related to the US military. About two-thirds of Georgia military jobs belong to the U.S. Army, and one belongs to Tiffany Mangal 14M, who works as a pediatrician at a private practice in downtown Columbus.
Families drive in from middle Georgia and Alabama because for generations, Pediatric Partners of Columbus has cared for their children. These parents welcomed Dr. Mangal into their circle of trust, and that relationship is professionally and personally satisfying to her.
“When a family identifies you as their doctor, you're going to be their first call and it's a great feeling to have that,” she said. “Because this practice has treated their grandma and their mom, they’re ready to instill that trust in me.”
Dr. Mangal joined another pediatrician, physician assistant and nurse practitioner “who have been there for years and years and know all the patients and the parents by their first names,” she said. “It feels more like family.”
Mangal and her husband, U.S. Army Major Jed Mangal, MD, met during their entrance interviews for Emory School of Medicine. In Columbus, the Emory brand means a lot.
“It’s very valuable to have graduated from Emory, especially if you're going to be practicing in the South,” Tiffany Mangal said. “Emory did a great job teaching us the humanity of medicine, treating the whole patient, learning how to talk to patients and developing good bedside manner. Not all medical schools do that, and the way you interact with patients means more than anything else.”
Both Drs. Mangal enjoy building relationships with patients over time, but where they would do that hinged on the relationship between Jed and the U.S. Army.
From their 2014 Emory graduation to 2019, they lived in Washington, DC. Her residency was at Georgetown University Hospital; his was combined internal medicine and psychiatry at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Because he owed a year of service for every year that the Army had paid for his medical training, the Mangals had to move where the military needed him.
Columbus is home to Fort Benning, home of the infantry, and at Martin Army Community Hospital, Jed Mangal is medical director of inpatient psychiatry. “Because internal medicine, psychiatry and pediatrics cover so much of the outpatient population, we sometimes joke that we could open our own practice,” Tiffany Mangal said.
The couple arrived in Georgia with a 1-month-old son, and in the next two years, they would see the pandemic start and their daughter’s birth. The move was a homecoming for Tiffany Mangal, who had grown up in Atlanta and attended Westminster before becoming the first doctor in her family. Her in-laws also relocated to Atlanta, so her children’s grandparents all are only about 120 miles away.
“I was ready to be somewhere closer to family,” Tiffany Mangal said. “The living is great here, and the pace of everything is more comfortable. We have a big yard, and in our free time, we like to get outside if we can. The Riverwalk area in Columbus is nice and we like to go to the playground and the food hall there. We also like to go to some local hiking spots and we took a nice stroll around the lake at Cooper Creek on a recent weekend. We look forward to heading out to more difficult hiking spots such as Providence Canyon and Cascade Falls once the kids are older.”
Another stress that she has shed in Columbus is a chunk of her medical education debt. The Kathelen and Dan Amos Medical Student Loan Forgiveness Program, intended to improve access to primary care in Georgia, reduced her debt balance by one-fourth. The Amos family is based in Columbus.
“It’s such a small world,” Tiffany Mangal said. “It’s a huge coincidence that we are both in Columbus, and the program is meant exactly for what I’m using it for.”
Story by Michelle Hiskey
Photos courtesy of Dr. Tiffany Mangal