After volunteering at Northeast Georgia Medical Center last summer, Lisa Sutton made a decision.
“I want to go to Emory Medical School,” she said.

Sutton, valedictorian of Westminister Christian School, will graduate this Saturday and start making tracks toward Emory University. With plans to become a neonatologist, a doctor for infants, Sutton said she wants to major in pre-medicine at Emory and then move on to Emory Medical School.

“I just love babies,” Sutton said. “I really am interested in being a doctor and helping people that way.”
Sutton said when she becomes a doctor, she hopes to steer teenagers away from behaviors that could lead to unplanned pregnancies.

“Teen pregnancy is definitely a big issue. I think we’re educated about it, but it doesn’t really sink in,” she said.

The daughter of Cathy and John Sutton said she’s got the travel bug and hopes to study abroad in Russia while in college. As a doctor, she said she would be interested in going on mission trips worldwide to provide health care for ailing infants and new mothers.

But Sutton’s services could stay local as well.

“They’re building a new neonatal unit at the hospital, and I’m thinking about working there,” she said.

“My family is behind me 100 percent,” Sutton said. “They’ve always encouraged me and reminded me that God has a plan for me. I think medicine’s it.”