Dr. Stella Hayes is a clinical investigator at the St. Johns Center for Clinical Research. She provides medical expertise and physical exams for study participants.

Dr. Hayes earned her Medical Degree in her home state of Nevada, then moved to Jacksonville, Florida where she completed a three-year residency in Family Medicine at the Naval Hospital and started her own family.  For the next 25 years, she and her growing family moved to various duty stations around the world where she worked as a physician in the US Navy caring for military members and their families. Overseas assignments included three-year tours in Yokosuka, Japan; and Naples, Italy. The Navy provided many unique and memorable experiences including training in wilderness medicine and cold weather medicine at the Marine Mountain Warfare Center in Bridgeport, California; trauma training at LA county general hospital; two deployments to Iraq; and a year in Bahrain.

The Navy also funded a year of specialized training in geriatric medicine at East Carolina University in North Carolina.  Dr. Hayes has been able to use her medical and military experience to help train the next generation of Navy physicians. She spent nine years on the teaching faculty in Navy family medicine residency training programs instructing upcoming Navy doctors in the subjects of military, family, and geriatric medicine.

Having retired from the Navy in 2017, Dr. Hayes now enjoys working with patients in a variety of settings including telemedicine, assisted living facilities, and at the Saint Johns Center for Clinical Research.

When she isn’t working, Dr. Hayes loves outdoor recreation, singing, traveling and spending time with her husband Doug, and their three wonderful children!

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