He is known as a military man: smart,
funny, and courageous. He is a leader who is dedicated and passionate in
everything and all that he does. He is a husband, father, grandfather and a
well-respected man among his colleagues and peers.
Dr. Gregory Moore is the current Senior
Director of Health Services at GeorgiaTech. For the past two and a half years, he has contributed to
help transform Health Services into a nationally recognized model for college
health. In the 2012 edition of the Princeton Review, Health Services at Georgia
Tech was ranked 6th out of the 376 schools that were surveyed
nationally. Dr. Moore states, “I always
knew we were good, but it is nice to see that we are so highly valued by our
patients. We don’t have far to go to be #1!”
His perseverance has remained strong
throughout the years. Dr. Moore was born in Pennsylvania, but grew up and was
raised in New England. After finishing college, he continued on to graduate
school in Connecticut and received his Masters in Public Health. After a few years in Public Health, he
continued further in his education, and decided he wanted to go to medical
school and attended the UniformsServices University (USU).
After completing Medical School, Dr. Moore decided he wanted to expand
his knowledge in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB/GYN) and pursued an
internship in OB/GYN at USU in Bethesda, MD.
“I didn’t really have a choice!” He
stated, when asked why he chose the Navy. Since he had a Masters in Public Health, Dr.
Moore sought a spot in Public Health Services when applying to medical school. Unfortunately, they only have a few spots in
that area. With the military, “They send you your acceptance saying, you are in
the navy, even though you have voiced your preference, but if you want to wait
to be in the Public Health Services, you can wait, but if you want to be in
Medical school right now, it’s the Navy. So I said ok, and I was there for the
next 25 years.”
Dr. Moore is a very smart and
knowledgeable man in all that he does. He has worked himself up in the ranks
and made a name for himself. With his
Masters in Public Health, he became the director of the Tuberculosis Program in
the Navy Environmental Health Center (NEHC) for the next two years. “The NEHC
is like a mini CDC
for the Navy, where they take care of infectious diseases, malaria, and TB.”
During his time in the Navy, there was a six-month time period where
Dr. Moore was placed on the naval hospital ship, “Comfort.” During the early
90’s when anarchy in Haiti was at its worse, they tried to help stabilize the
situation. “The war had already started, the 82nd airborne was
already in the air,” he states. In 1993,
there was a mass exodus of Cuban and Haitian refugees. “The coastguard was
pulling 200 people out of the ocean everyday, 7 days a week and dropping them
off at Guantanamo Bay because they had nowhere else to take them.” This was
before Guantanamo bay had become a prison camp. He continued on to say, “there
ended up being about 40,000 refugees out there…. We received a help message
from Guantanamo, saying we have 200-1000 pregnant women, we don’t really know
how many there are but we need someone to take care of them.” Dr. Moore was
sent off the Comfort ship to assist aid in taking care of the many pregnant refugees
that were there and needed special attention. This was when Dr. Moore met his
wife, Candice. She was a nurse practitioner during the time and was also sent
off the ship to help with the refugees in need.
Taking care of the refugees during this
time, was what interested Dr. Moore the most during his time in the Navy.
Other encounters that he faced were
with HIV positive patients. “About ¼ of them were HIV positive and that was
challenging,” he states.
After retiring from the Navy after 25
years, Dr. Moore pursued his career at the University of Kentucky, becoming the
medical director of health services, as well as teaching in the schools medical
program. Completing seven years at UK, he decided to come to Georgia Tech.
Dr. Moore is continuously working on
new ways to improve Health Services at Georgia Tech. He has contributed to
Health Services becoming recently accredited with the Accreditation Association
of Ambulatory Health Care and had also approved and completed the multimillion
dollar renovation of Health Services last year.
Dr. Moore is an exceptional man to work
for and work with. With his wealth of clinical experience and dry sense of
humor, he makes the work place a very interesting, fun and enjoyable place to
be. Because most of his experience came from military duty at foreign bases, he
is at ease with the diverse patient population at Georgia Tech.
L: Shan Baker, Women's Health Supervisor,
Deepa Vanmali, Dr. Gregory Moore
at Employee of the Month Ceremony
L: Georgia Tech President, Bud Peterson
& R: Dr. Gregory Moore, presenting the Stamps Health Services
100 year anniversary plaque.
