Meet the woman who’s helped prepare Piedmont’s medical residents for almost 52 years

Mary Alice “MA” Dowdell’s office is like Grand Central Station.

As part of coordinating residents at Piedmont Columbus Regional, Dowdell likes to keep her door open allowing everyone to come through for one reason or another.

Dowdell has been the medical education residency coordinator for almost 48 years and worked at the hospital for almost 52 years. She is often the first and last face residents see after graduating medical school and starting their residency at Piedmont, Dowdell said.

“I can name a doctor in almost every city and state,” she said.

In her position, Dowdell goes through the interview process with residents, onboarding, and ensures they have all their required documents and credentials. She keeps track of the number of procedures they’ve done and how many patients they’ve seen during their residency to make sure they have done all that is required to graduate.

Dowdell plans all the events for residents from orientation to graduation. She is with them from start to finish, and has even taught some to manage their checkbooks.

“To some of (the residents) — many of them — I’m their mom away from home,” Dowdell said.

There have been numerous residents over the years who have asked Dowdell to leave and come work for them after they move on from their residency. But Dowdell has always told them that while she’s honored, she can’t leave because Columbus and Piedmont are home.

As part of an ongoing series for Women’s History Month, Dowdell shared some of the most influential experiences she’s had in her life that have impacted her long career in helping develop physicians with both learning life skills and the importance of following their passion.

How a sewing machine transformed her

Sewing was a large part of Dowdell’s job at Piedmont when she first began working there. Residents would need inside pockets in the lab coats, Dowdell said. They would need their sleeves hemmed, or shorter residents my need their jackets adjusted to the appropriate length.

“Many of them of them got married,” Dowdell said. “I would make their bridesmaid dresses or cheerleading uniforms.”

Her talent for sewing became integral in performing her job over the years, but she remembers the moment her mother and aunt helped her to pursue the craft.

When Dowdell was 13 years old, she asked her mom, Mary Sanders, if she could use her sewing machine to make a dress. The students would be taking their school pictures the next day. All the other girls were talking about the new dresses they’d be wearing, and Dowdell wanted one too.

“Girl, I’m not going to let up my sewing machine,” Mary told Dowdell. “You already don’t have any clothes to wear. None of us will have clothes if I let you tear the machine up.”

The oldest of six girls, Dowdell has never been defiant. She knew if her mom said no, then that was a no. Later in life, Dowdell would carry this strictness with her as she raised her daughter, Laquita, and helped the residents in her care.

The family lived in a neighborhood where Kendrick High School now stands. Everyone knew everyone in that area. So, when Dowdell’s mother left for work that night, the children were safe with family members and neighbors keeping an eye out.

After her mother had gone, Dowdell went across the road and knocked on her aunt’s door at around 8:30 p.m.

“Where are you going this time of night?” her aunt asked.

Dowdell repeated the request she’d asked her mother. She wanted to use her aunt’s sewing machine and needed material to make a new dress.

After commenting that Dowdell would likely be up all night making the dress, her aunt allowed her to pick out some fabric and use the machine to make a dress. Dowdell chose a style of fabric that would not need to be pressed knowing that she wouldn’t have time to both make the dress and get it dressed before school the next day.

She stayed awake cutting the dress out, adding pockets and putting in a zipper.

The next morning when Mary returned home from work, she looked at Dowdell and asked where she’d gotten the dress from because Mary knew she hadn’t purchased it.

Dowdell told her that she made it.

“I’ve told you not to lie,” Mary said. “And I hope that’s not what you’re doing.”

“No, ma’am,” Dowdell responded.

Mary asked her to stand up and take the dress off, so she could inspect more closely. Dowdell did as her mother requested. After looking at the dress, she gave it back for Dowdell to put on.

Then Mary pulled Dowdell into a hug.

“I am so sorry that I didn’t give you this machine,” Mary said. “And I didn’t let you use it. You can have it.”

Mary gave Dowdell the sewing machine. Dowdell used the Sears Kenmore sewing maching until she was 22 years old.

“If I didn’t tell you I made (that dress) you wouldn’t have known,” Dowdell said. “Because (Mary) was just astonished.”

Mary promised her daughter that she would never deprive her again from pursuing her passion.

Learning by listening to others

Before working at the hospital, Dowdell was a stay-at-home mom. She continued her hobby of sewing for others.

“It was a challenge because everybody didn’t like the same style,” she said. “And you get to put some of your taste and your spin on what they ask you to do.”

But Dowdell wanted more from her life, and she felt that she could do more. She didn’t have to work, her husband was earning enough to provide for his family, but Dowdell wanted to work.

Mary had been a nurse technician during Dowdell’s childhood, and had taught her medical terminology when Dowdell began showing an interest in her mother’s work.

Dowdell considered going to nursing school, but in 1971 she got her job at the hospital. She realized quickly that she liked her new job. She liked the people that she was working with, her involvement with the physicians as they trained and learning from them by listening in during conferences.

“If you sit and listen, you’re bound to learn something,” she said. “It’s a sad day if you’re sitting in a room and a conversation is going on and you don’t learn something.”

Eventually, her daughter began volunteering at the hospital while Dowdell worked. Something she was happy about because it allowed her to know where her child was at all times.

Throughout her time at Piedmont, Dowdell can honestly say that she’s never hated going to work. There are times when she has to do something that she needs to concentrate on, so she’ll shut her door. But more often than not, Dowdell keeps her door open to listen to residents, give advice and be available to her coworkers.

In her phone, Dowdell keeps pictures of her meeting residents’ newborn children. And she treasures the milestones that she’s seen physicians go through during their time there.

“It still feels good to get up and go to work,” she said. “And it’s not like work. It’s like going to be with family.”

‘In honor of Mary Alice M.A. Dowdell’

One day, in 2021, Dowdell’s office was not like Grand Central Station.

Everyone was busy, and going in different directions the whole morning. No one went into her office.

She wasn’t alarmed at the time, believing there was a lot to do that day, Dowdell said, but upon reflection realized that maybe she should have picked up that something strange was happening.

Dr. John Bucholtz, director of medical education and family medicine residency at Piedmont, came into her office around 11 a.m. to get a couple of things. Not long after that, Dowdell noticed residents coming into the building.

“Good morning, Miss MA,” they said. “How are you doing?”

None of the residents chatted very long past being polite. They were acting like Dowdell had the plague, she said. At this point, things were now suspicious.

Eventually, Bucholtz came back to Dowdell.

“MA, we’re having a meeting in the conference room,” he told her. “And I want you there.”

Dutifully, Dowdell went to the conference room that was already filled with people. Bucholtz directed her to sit in a seat in the front.

“When has he ever told me where to sit?” Dowdell wondered.

It was odd that he would have felt he needed to ask her to sit in the front anyway, she said, because she always sits in the front. She has a joke that she sits in the front at church because she doesn’t want the pastor’s word to get watered down by passing through other people.

About 10 minutes after taking her seat, Dowdell noticed her pastor come into the room. She asked him why he was there, but the pastor didn’t answer her. Bucholtz began the meeting by talking about how the conference room had recently been remodeled.

He then asked Dowdell to come up and help him unveil a plaque.

She walked up, and began removing the cover off the square plaque.

“In Honor of Mary Alice ‘M.A.’ Dowdell,” she read crying.

Dowdell had never envisioned that she would be honored in such a way, she said, not believing that she’d done anything worthy of a room being named after her.

“My daughter had a room named after her when she was alive and worked in the health department,” Dowdell said. “And I thought, ‘Well, both of us got one now.’”