Effingham Hospital and Care Center invites the public to meet its new general surgeon. Community members can meet Dr. Joey L. Christmas at a community open house and reception, which will be held July 1 at 10 a.m at Effingham Surgical Services, located in the professional building on the hospital campus adjacent to the hospital.

Dr. Christmas comes to Effingham Hospital from Phelps County Regional Medical Center in Rolla, Mo., where he served as a general surgeon. Dr. Christmas will begin seeing patients July 1, and his office hours will be from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. Some of the surgeries Dr. Christmas performs include appendectomies, biopsies, colonoscopies and endoscopies, gallbladder surgeries, hemorrhoid removal, hernia repair and laparoscopies. His new surgery practice will accept all insurance plans, and the office telephone number is 754-0185.

“We are so pleased to welcome a surgeon with the talents and abilities that Dr. Christmas possesses. He will be an asset to the hospital and the community,” said Effingham Hospital Chief Executive Officer Norma J. Morgan.

A LaGrange native, Dr. Christmas graduated from the Medical College of Georgia in 2003 and completed his general surgery residency at the University of Kansas in the Wichita Center for Graduate Medical Education.