Brooke Amero, MD, a 2025 graduate of the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and an advocate for women’s health, is the recipient of this year’s John F. Beard Award for Compassionate Care.

Augusta University President Russell T. Keen presented the Beard Award – which comes with a $40,000 monetary award – to Amero during the MCG Hooding Ceremony on May 8.

“It not only exemplifies the collective values and character of those it represents but serves as a valuable reminder of the magnitude and impact that compassionate caregivers can have on our patients and the community,” Keen said. “Dr. Amero exemplifies these values through her dedication to improving access to essential personal care products and her work advancing mental and physical wellness for vulnerable populations.”

“Dr. Amero has demonstrated a strong commitment to medicine and the care of patients,” said Elizabeth Gray, MD, campus dean for MCG Savannah at Georgia Southern University. “She is dedicated to learning, and it is evident that her hard work is strongly correlated with her desire to help others.”

In her first year of medical school, Amero founded Period Augusta at AU, a chapter of PERIOD: The Menstrual Movement, to improve access to feminine hygiene products, leading efforts that resulted in over 5,000 donations for those in need. She also provided menstrual health education to adolescents in the Richmond County juvenile court system and worked on the legislative front to advocate for the removal of Georgia’s sales tax on menstrual products.

“Brooke’s dedication to this cause inspired others and laid the foundation for an organization that continues its vital work today,” said Neha Balachandran, MD, a 2025 classmate of Amero’s. “Brooke has identified critical unmet needs in the community and taken meaningful action.”

Amero consistently partnered with SafeHomes, an organization that supports victims of intimate partner violence, as well as Resilient Teens, supporting the physical and mental well-being of adolescents. She produced patient education videos on the importance of cervical cancer screening and labor pain management for the MCG YouTube channel, and she played an instrumental role in founding a free street medicine clinic for the unhoused population in Savannah, focusing on primary care and women’s health.

“Recognizing a gap in medical education, she expanded intimate partner violence training at MCG by developing a patient care learning curriculum that has now trained over 400 medical students on IPV screening and intervention,” Balachandran said. “She is also mentoring junior students to sustain the initiative and has served as a panelist at MCG to discuss medical student advocacy for affected patients.”

“It is very evident that Ms. Amero is passionate about supporting those in the community who may not be able to help themselves,” said Nina Paletta, MD, assistant campus dean for MCG Savannah. “In medical school, free time is a rare and precious thing. To see her consistently using her free time to advocate for her community, to plan and carry out fundraising events and volunteer events, and to continually find ways to leave her community a little better than how she found it, is truly inspiring.”

Amero, from Alpharetta, earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Georgia before attending MCG. This summer, Amero will begin her residency at Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center in Marietta and then train at Emory University for diagnostic radiology.

The $40,000 Beard Award is given annually by William Porter “Billy” Payne and his wife, Martha, to a graduating Medical College of Georgia, College of Nursing, College of Allied Health Sciences or The Graduate Schoolstudent at AU who exemplifies caring and compassion in health care. Payne, the immediate past chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club, established the award in 1998 in memory of his father-in-law, who died of cancer in 1997. The award honors President Emeritus Francis J. Tedesco and Beard’s physician, Dr. Mark F. Williams, a 1988 Medical College of Georgia graduate who treated Beard during his hospitalization at Wellstar MCG Health Medical Center.