Dr. G. Lombard Kelly, a native Augustan, received his education from the Richmond Academy and the University of Georgia before pursuing a medical career. However, the path to becoming a doctor involved him withdrawing twice from medical schools. During these transitional years, he worked as a newspaper reporter and a teacher. Dr. William Doughty, Jr., Dean of the Medical Department of the University of Georgia, persuaded Kelly to try medical school one more time and offered him a position of assistant professor of anatomy in 1918. While teaching in the anatomy department, Kelly earned his BS in Medicine in 1921 and MD degree in 1924. The institution promoted him to professor of anatomy five years later.

Kelly’s newspaper background benefited him when the Board of Regents threatened to close the school in the 1930s. The G. Lombard Kelly Papers contains several letters he wrote to MCG alumni members, state politicians, Board of Regents, and the Governor stating why the institution should remain open. In 1934, the Board of Regents named Kelly acting dean of the institution, and one year later, they appointed him dean. Kelly embarked on a twenty-year mission, not only to save the school from extinction, but also to put it on a strong foundation that would assure its continued existence and growth. He developed a master plan that included the establishment of a state owned and controlled teaching hospital in Augusta for the Medical College of Georgia instead of using the city owned and controlled University Hospital as the teaching hospital for MCG.

In 1950, Kelly became the first president of the school, after the Regents separated the institution from the University of Georgia and renamed it the Medical College of Georgia. He continued to teach anatomy and the history of medicine with his administrative role. In March 1953, Kelly announced his intention to retire at the end of the fiscal year in order to devote his time to the practice of his special field of reproductive physiology. One month after his retirement, construction started on the state hospital. Kelly was the President Emeritus of the Medical College of Georgia until his death in 1972.