Public health in coastal Georgia has a new leader. Dr. Bonzo Reddick has been named health director of the eight-county Coastal Health District. 

Reddick steps into the public health leadership role following the retirement of Dr. Lawton Davis.

Reddick is no stranger to the community health needs of the coastal area. For the past five years, he led an outpatient practice at the J.C. Lewis Primary Health Care Center in Savannah, a federally qualified health center and designated Healthcare for the Homeless site. 

He served on the Health Equity Council for the Georgia Department of Public Health and was on the medical advisory committees for the Savannah public school system and for the Mayor's Office during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reddick received his B.S. degree from Morehouse College and his medical degree from Morehouse School of Medicine. After graduating from medical school in 2002, he left Georgia for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he completed a family medicine residency, two faculty development fellowships, and a master’s degree in public health. After graduating from residency in 2005, he practiced full-spectrum family medicine - including delivering babies and inpatient medicine - for 17 years. 

He was named Top Family Physician in Savannah by South Magazine in 2016 & 2019, and he was recently named the Family Physician of the Year by the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians for 2021. He has published numerous articles in scientific and medical journals, and he recently finished authoring a book on achieving health equity. 

Reddick will lead the Coastal Health District from offices in Savannah and Brunswick, overseeing all district and county public health programs in Bryan, Camden, Chatham, Effingham, Glynn, Liberty, Long, and McIntosh Counties.