Local & State Headlines

MCG's expansion good for economy

• Part 2 of 2: Expanding the state's only public medical school will infuse $3.2 billion a year into the Georgia economy.

Barbara Rivera Holmes

ALBANY — For officials at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, the dozen or so Medical College of Georgia students completing rotations in Albany aren’t simply young folks passing through. Rather, each one is a shot at recruitment into the Southwest Georgia health care industry.

The nation faces a shortage of health care professionals, from nurses to primary care physicians, that will only increase as the years pass. In Georgia, it’s expected that there will be a deficit 2,500 doctors by 2020.

Training residents and MCG students at Phoebe isn’t just about the hospital doing its part; it’s about survival.

REELING ’EM IN

The Medical College of Georgia’s clinical remote campus at Phoebe allows students to learn in a noncompetitive setting. It also offers them the chance of a medical future in Southwest Georgia.

According to medical professionals, residents tend to practice medicine in or around the cities in which they received their postgraduate training.

Since 1996, 50 of the 65 residents who have graduated from Phoebe’s Southwest Georgia Family Medicine Residency program are practicing medicine in the state, program data shows. Of those, 71 percent, or 46 students, have remained within a 100-mile radius of Albany, while 54 percent, or 35, have stayed in Southwest Georgia.

Likewise, medical students may opt to become residents at a facility in which they had a rotation.

Take Dr. Alan Brown. As an MCG student in the 1990s, Brown did a pediatrics rotation at Phoebe. In 2003, Brown and his wife, Dr. Kelly Clay, took jobs at the Albany community hospital.

HEALTH & ECONOMICS

Growing the medical community in mostly rural Southwest Georgia increases access to health care and expands the regional economy.

According to a study by the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care, the economic impact per family physician per year is $1.03 million. Family physicians are on the lower earnings scale when compared to those in subspecialties, such as neurology.

Annually, family physicians in Georgia have an impact of $1.8 billion on the roughly $35-billion Georgia economy.

As the No. 1 employer in the region — it has some 3,800 part-time, full-time and contractual workers, including 280 physicians on the medical staff — Phoebe has an annual economic impact of about $1 billion on Albany’s roughly $5 billion economy.

During economic downturns, health care is a stabilizing force in the market.

“The health sectors will be one of the better performers of 2008 and you have a big cluster of them here,” said Jeff Humphreys, director of the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

Even during a recession, he said, health service is “one of those things people keep buying.” Long term, he said, an aging population will seek more care than a younger one.

“The demand side of health care looks super.”

WANTED: MORE DOCTORS

As Baby Boomers age, the strain on health care providers will be such that the state will be short 2,500 doctors by 2020, predicts consulting firm Tripp Umbach.

In January, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia accepted a plan to expand MCG by increasing enrollment, establishing a campus in Athens and further committing to campuses in Albany and Savannah.

According to Tripp Umbach’s plan, MCG’s total enrollment must grow by 455 students, from 745 students today to 1,200 by 2020. The plan details increasing enrollment at the Augusta campus from 745 to 900; for the new Athens campus to enroll 40 students starting next year and, ultimately, 240 students; and for Albany and Savannah to each have 30 students on rotation.

Such an expansion would require $210 million in capital projects, including a 6,000-square-foot, $2.4 million education facility in Albany.

“It’s a key move, and you need to put some money there,” said Dr. Doug Patten, senior vice president of medical affairs at Phoebe.

According to the report, the economic benefits of expanding MCG would reach $3.2 billion a year by 2020.

“This is a process,” Patten said, “and when you start talking about $200 million-$400 million, you gotta be thoughtful.”

Pushing ahead with an education facility sans government funding is always an option.

“We (Phoebe Putney) are going to use our own funds to create some momentum,” Patten said. “It will be a first-class medical education facility that will address the medical education of medical students, nurses, allied health.”

The intention, Patten said, is to convert the former Albany Middle School, across from the hospital, into an education facility complete with classroom space and teleconference and telemedicine capabilities.

“We’re looking at a total price tag of $20 million-$30 million for the whole package,” he said.

Although it’s always a possibility, Patten doesn’t see Phoebe becoming a four-year campus in the foreseeable future.

“For us to have the labs ... for the first and second years would require a huge expansion in terms of facility (and faculty),” he said. “It would be hard to justify.”

Patten said that educating third- and fourth-year students at Phoebe gives the state the “best return for its money.”

The Tripp Umbach report suggests growing the state’s medical residencies by a minimum of 104 slots by 2020. According to the firm, Augusta would grow by 11, from 429 residents to 440; Savannah would grow by 22, from 118 to 140; and Albany would grow by 11, from 19 to 30. The Athens area, which doesn’t yet have any residents, would have 60.

“Without that,” Patten said, “producing a bunch of doctors won’t help because they will leave for residencies.”

Although Patten, a native of Louisiana, completed his residency in Tampa, Fla., “the reason I practiced in Southwest Georgia had everything to do with where I trained.” In south Florida, Patten, a surgeon, said he made a connection with with a doctor originally from Cordele that ultimately led to a job in Albany.

The future also may see a residential village close to the hospital.

“It makes it attractive for them to come here,” he said.

More Headlines>>