Underwood Wins Inaugural Dr. Max Taylor Award of Excellence

TUPELO, Mississippi—Dr. Trest Underwood, a recent graduate of North Mississippi Medical Center’s Internal Medicine Residency Program, has received the inaugural Dr. Max Taylor Award of Excellence.

A native of Seminary, Dr. Underwood holds a bachelor’s degree in health sciences from the University of Mississippi and began his health care career as a respiratory therapist at NMMC, working from 2014-2017.

After graduating from medical school at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in Auburn, Alabama, he returned to NMMC for the internal medicine residency program. He served as chief resident for 2023-2024. Dr. Underwood will now pursue a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. Once he completes his fellowship, he’ll return to NMMC once again in 2027.

The award honors Dr. Max Taylor, an infectious disease specialist at NMMC-Tupelo for more than 40 years until his retirement in 2023. The award’s founders say Dr. Taylor’s expertise and compassion are surpassed only by his humility.

Dr. Ken Harvey (left) and Dr. David Pizzimenti (right) present Dr. Trest Underwood with the inaugural Dr. Max Taylor Award of Excellence during graduation ceremonies June 6 for North Mississippi Medical Center’s Internal Medicine Residency Program.

“Dr. Max Taylor is the best physician I have ever known,” says Dr. Ken Harvey, who first met Dr. Taylor as a UMMC resident in 1980. “He is the major reason I came to Tupelo to practice—when I learned that Max was coming too, that sealed the deal for me.”

Dr. Harvey had the privilege of working alongside Dr. Taylor for most of his career. “Max has always tried to do the very best for the patient that he could do,” Dr. Harvey says, “and he expected the same from the rest of us.”

Dr. Taylor graduated from Belhaven College in 1972 and earned his medical degree from the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. He completed an internal medicine residency in 1979 and served as chief resident the following year. He completed fellowship training in infectious disease in 1982 and served several years on the University of Mississippi Medical Center faculty.

In 1984, Dr. Taylor joined Internal Medicine Associates and the medical staff of North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo. In 2002, he founded NMMC’s Garfield Clinic for patients with HIV and other infectious diseases.

Dr. Taylor worked tirelessly to establish Garfield Clinic “to care for a group of patients who were shunned by many,” Dr. Havey says. “The care he provided kept them well and out of the hospital.”

Dr. Dennis Smith, director of NMMC’s Family Medicine Residency Program, completed an infectious disease rotation with Dr. Taylor when he was a second-year resident in 2005. Later they became colleagues when Dr. Taylor served as Designated Institutional Official for the Family Medicine Residency Program.

“Dr. Taylor is the smartest man I’ve ever met,” Dr. Smith says. “I still keep my notes from what he taught me in my desk drawer to pull out from time to time, and they are just as applicable today. He is always very patient with the learner and very gracious in the way he interacts with all people.”

When nurse practitioner Becky Dorough became NMMC’s first infectious disease case manager in 1993, “Dr. Taylor was a great mentor. He lectured me and gave me handwritten notes on index cards,” she says. “He taught me something new every day, and I had homework every night.” He also pushed her to pursue nurse practitioner training so that she could staff Garfield Clinic when it opened. “When we started, many HIV patients did not survive,” she says. “Dr. Taylor is a God-fearing man who helped me learn to share my faith appropriately with patients.”

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Mindy Prewitt counts Dr. Taylor as a mentor and friend. “While there are many good physicians, the truly great ones, like Dr. Max Taylor, possess exceptional levels of discernment, wisdom, knowledge, compassion and perseverance,” Dr. Prewitt says. “Wisdom and discernment are heightened by experience; knowledge is matured by dedicated study; and compassion and perseverance are revealed in excellent bedside manner and an inexhaustible pursuit of the truth. In bearing such traits, Max has always stood tall amongst his peers. But these traits are superseded, and enhanced, by Max’s unwavering belief in living a purpose-driven professional and personal life nested in the Lord.”