Dr. Brent Flickinger is a board-certified rheumatologist and a founding physician of the Arthritis Center of North Georgia, where he has been caring for patients in Gainesville and the surrounding region since 2007. He sees patients at ACNG’s Gainesville and Watkinsville locations.

Dr. Flickinger grew up in Alpharetta, Georgia, and attended the University of Georgia, where he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. He earned his medical degree at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta before completing both his internal medicine residency and rheumatology fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston — a program particularly well known for its expertise in scleroderma and lupus care and research. He joined the Arthritis Center of North Georgia upon completing his fellowship in 2007 and has been in practice here for 18 years.

Dr. Flickinger is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in rheumatology. He is a member of the American College of Rheumatology and the Georgia Society of Rheumatology, and serves as Director of the Rheumatology Clinical Rotation for the Northeast Georgia Medical Center Internal Medicine and Family Medicine Residency Programs. He holds admitting and consulting privileges at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville and Braselton, and at St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens.

His clinical interests span the full breadth of rheumatologic disease, with particular focus on rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and the spondyloarthropathies, systemic lupus erythematosus, autoimmune connective tissue diseases (including scleroderma, dermatomyositis, polymyositis, mixed connective tissue disease, and Sjögren’s syndrome), vasculitis, antiphospholipid syndrome, crystalline arthropathies (gout and pseudogout), autoinflammatory syndromes, osteoporosis, and fibromyalgia. He also participates in clinical research and has authored and co-authored peer-reviewed publications in rheumatology.

Dr. Flickinger approaches each patient as a fresh start — setting aside prior diagnoses and working from the beginning of symptom development to build a full, accurate clinical picture. He sees himself as a guide: walking patients through his findings, explaining his reasoning, and working collaboratively toward a plan that fits the individual. “I want patients to know that we are here for them,” he says. “Our goal is for the patient to be comfortable throughout the entire experience — and for them to know that everything we do is in their best interest.”

What drew him to rheumatology, he says, is the intellectual challenge. Rheumatologic conditions are among medicine’s most complex — tests are imperfect, symptoms overlap, and arriving at the right answer requires both broad and focused thinking simultaneously. That complexity, combined with the opportunity to build lasting relationships with patients navigating chronic disease, is what keeps the work meaningful. “Rheumatology patients are kind and thoughtful,” he says. “They are fragile, but they are also incredibly tough. They share their lives with me — their struggles, their wins, their full humanity. That is a privilege.”

Outside of medicine, Dr. Flickinger enjoys spending time with his family, hiking, traveling, and volunteering at the Good News Clinic in Gainesville, providing rheumatology care to uninsured and underserved patients. He is married and has three children and four dogs.