Imagine a practice where you arrive each morning to a thoughtfully designed cardiology clinic, spend your day providing consultative expertise that directly prevents unnecessary patient transfers, and leave each evening knowing you've filled a critical gap in your community's healthcare fabric. This hospital-employed Non-Invasive General Cardiologist position at Elbert Memorial Hospital represents something increasingly rare in modern medicine: the opportunity to establish a cardiology program from the ground up in a community that has been without this essential specialty since 2022.
Your practice will center at the Lake Russell Medical Building, a modern specialty healthcare facility where you'll benefit from dedicated clinic support staff. This isn't a position where you'll be pressured to fill someone else's oversized shoes or navigate entrenched workflows that don't serve patients well. Instead, you'll have the professional autonomy to build a practice aligned with your clinical philosophy, focusing exclusively on non-invasive cardiology without the pressure of interventional procedures or cath lab demands.
Elbert Memorial Hospital serves as the healthcare anchor for Elbert County and the surrounding northeast Georgia region, providing care to a population that has been sending over 2,400 cardiology referrals annually to Athens—a 40-minute drive that many elderly patients and their families struggle to make. The hospital's service area encompasses a loyal patient population that would vastly prefer to receive specialty care locally, and primary care physicians in the community are eager to collaborate with a cardiologist who understands the value of keeping patients close to home.
The community need is both urgent and quantifiable. Currently, approximately 70% of the hospital's transfers are cardiac-related—not because these patients require interventional procedures, but simply because there's no cardiologist available to provide consultative guidance. Hospital leadership estimates that 30% of these transfers could be safely managed locally with cardiology support, which translates to better patient outcomes, reduced healthcare costs, and stronger community loyalty to the hospital. Your presence will fundamentally change the hospital's ability to care for cardiac patients and will likely support the reopening of the ICU, which was closed due to insufficient specialty support.
You'll report directly to Tyler Taylor, the hospital's CEO, who leads a stable, physician-friendly organization with a 58-year history of community healthcare. The reporting structure is refreshingly straightforward—no labyrinthine corporate hierarchies or competing regional priorities. Mr. Taylor and his leadership team, including CFO Tim Wren and a hospital authority board that includes two local family practice physicians, understand that recruiting and retaining specialists requires supporting work-life balance and clinical autonomy.
The position offers genuine flexibility in employment structure: you can choose traditional W-2 employment with full benefits (if working ≥32 hours/week) or 1099 independent contractor status if you prefer maximum tax flexibility for commuting, housing, or other business expenses. This flexibility is particularly valuable if you're considering commuting from Athens, maintaining a midweek residence in Elberton, or structuring your practice around other professional or personal commitments. The schedule allows you to maintain continuity with patients while preserving substantial personal time—imagine having four full days each week for family, recreation at nearby Lake Russell or Lake Hartwell, or pursuing other interests while still providing essential specialty care to an appreciative patient population.
This position represents what many cardiologists seek but rarely find: the ability to practice meaningful medicine, establish deep community connections, and maintain the work-life balance that drew you to medicine in the first place. You'll be the cardiologist this community has been waiting for, with the professional satisfaction of knowing that your clinical decisions directly improve access to care and patient outcomes every single day.