Dr. Lynn Gardner Appointed as Interim Chair of the Department of Pediatrics
Dear Morehouse School of Medicine Community~
It is my pleasure to announce the appointment of Dr. Lynn Gardner as Interim Chair of the Department of Pediatrics. Effective January 1, 2022, Dr. Gardner will lead the department following Dr. Yasmin Tyler-Hill’s retirement. Dr. Tyler-Hill has served Morehouse School of Medicine for 20 years as both Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics.
Dr. Lynn Gardner is originally from North Carolina. She received her Bachelor of Science and medical degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She then did a general pediatrics residency and an additional chief residency year at Emory University School of Medicine.
After residency, Dr. Gardner spent more than two years in private practice before returning to Emory as faculty where she served for almost 18 years. While there, she served as Associate Director of the Pediatrics Residency Training Program for more than 12 years. Other roles she held in the training program at Emory included Director of the Community Pediatrics Rotations, which focused on social determinant of health and health disparities, Director of the Global Health Track for the training program, and Grand Rounds moderator for the Department of Pediatrics. While at Emory, she also received the Department Humanitarian Award in 2011 and the Department Teacher of the Year award in 2016.
In 2017, Dr. Gardner joined the faculty at Morehouse School of Medicine where she currently serves as Director of the Pediatric Residency Training Program. She is credited with significantly increasing the board pass rate for the program, as well as expanding subspecialty opportunities for pediatric residents. Dr. Gardner continues to direct the Community Pediatrics Rotation, which focuses on the social determinants of health and health disparities.
Nationally, Dr. Gardner has served as co-chair of the Associate Program Directors Special Interest Group in the Association of Pediatric Program Directors, and as a member of the Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As chair of the Educational Interventions for Lead Exposed Children workgroup, Dr. Gardner led a team whose work culminated in the widely accepted national standards of care. She also served as Medical Staff President, Hospital Board Member for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Hughes Spalding and on the System Medical Executive Committee for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
Seeing a critical need among her patient population, Dr. Gardner co-founded a 501c3 non-profit organization called Exceeding the Mark Inc., which provides one on one in-home tutoring services for low and middle-income children. She also serves as Director of World Missions at her church and has led a team of medical professionals, including medical students, residents, and physician assistants to Jamaica to serve alongside of the local healthcare workers in small mountain town in the Parish of Trelawny for the past nine years.
Dr. Yasmin Tyler-Hill, a native South Carolinian, attended boarding school at the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Md. She remembers Holton as the place where she developed much of her philosophy about work ethic and life goals. To this day, she lives her life by Holton’s motto: “Inveniam Viam Avet Faciam” – “I will find a way or make one.”
She graduated with a degree in Biology with a letter in the Science of Human Affairs from Princeton University. She received her medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina and completed her internship and residency at Boston City Hospital, now Boston University Medical Center. In 2006, Dr. Tyler-Hill completed the Program for Physician Leaders at Academic Medical Centers sponsored by the School of Public Health at Harvard University.
Dr. Tyler-Hill joined the Morehouse School of Medicine faculty in 2001 as an Assistant Professor of clinical pediatrics, later rising to the rank of Associate Professor in 2009 and Professor in 2020. Before coming to Morehouse School of Medicine, Dr. Tyler-Hill held leadership roles in a five center FQHC as the Chief of Pediatrics. She also served as both Medical Director at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters as an Interim Division Director, Division of General Pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School. At Morehouse School of Medicine, Dr. Tyler-Hill immersed herself in assisting the then Chair in building the new residency program. A few of her many accomplishments included curricula development for the pediatric residency program; significantly increasing the Morehouse School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics footprint within the Children Hospital of Atlanta (CHOA) system by creating pathways and placements for pediatric residents in the CHOA System, where she served as the inaugural faculty preceptor for the residents and students at CHOA at Scottish Rite. She was appointed the lead clinician for the Department of Pediatrics. Later, she reestablished the then-defunct Continuity Clinic and worked to improve and establish relationships with community partners such as West End Medical Center now Family Health Centers of Georgia, CHOA and many community pediatricians. Her vision was to maintain the only pediatric training program at a Historically Black Medical school by providing excellent training for residents.
A recipient of many awards related to her work in child health, nationally recognized servant leader and sought-after speaker, Dr. Tyler-Hill serves on several nonprofit boards related to the intersection of early childhood learning and health. Additionally, Dr. Tyler-Hill was a long standing member of the CHOA Physician Leader Council that advised the CEO and CMO on physician related matters. Noted as a physician leader, Dr. Tyler-Hill was an inaugural Director of The Children’s Care Network, the largest pediatric integrated network in the U.S. with 1 million covered pediatric lives and more than 1,200 primary care and specialty pediatricians. She served on both the Executive Committee and the Quality Committees of the board. She continues to champion health equity and is a subject matter expert on topics related to early brain development and early childhood education and health. More recently in her role as leader of the pediatric section of National Medical Association, Dr. Tyler-Hill illuminates’ issues of child mental health and implementation of anti-racism child health policy and practice, which is where she plans to focus her continued advocacy efforts.
Please join me in thanking Dr. Tyler-Hill for her many years of dedicated service and welcoming Dr. Gardner to the role of Interim Chair of the Department of Pediatrics.
Joseph A. Tyndall, MD, MPH Executive Vice President and Dean