As Georgia’s only public medical college expands to meet the state's demand for more doctors, school officials saw a drastic increase in applicants for next year's class.
The medical school at Georgia Health Sciences University received 2,384 applications for next fall – a 10 percent increase over the previous year. The national average increased by about 3 percent, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Medical College of Georgia Dean Peter Buckley said they're still trying to understand the increase but think it's a combination of increased outreach, word of mouth and interest in the school's regional campuses.
The main campus is located in Augusta and officials are expanding class size there. In August 2010 they opened the Athens partnership campus with the University of Georgia. The college operates two clinical campuses in Albany and Savannah and plans to have one in Rome by July 2013. The multiple locations allow students to practice in different corners of the state and each site uses slightly different teaching styles, Buckley said.
David Moore, a senior at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, applied to attend the Medical College next year. The Marietta native planned to return to Georgia for his graduate studies and wants to practice medicine in Georgia. The school is his first choice, partly because of the clinical sites.
"I'll have the chance to travel across the state and work with people who live in different environments and have different needs," he said. "I wanted that diversity of experiences."
The multiple sites were designed to help the college expand its enrollment. The school is projected to enroll 1,200 students by August 2017 – a 50 percent increase from 2010, according to data released this summer.
The expansion follows national trends at other schools, spurred by the national medical college association’s call for increased enrollment to meet the needs of a growing and aging population. These efforts started before the federal government approved new laws expanding health care benefits.
Georgia ranks 40th in the number of physicians per capita nationwide, according to the American Medical Association. At the same time, the U.S. Census Bureau consistently ranks Georgia among the top 10 in population and population growth.
About 98 percent of the Medical College's students are from Georgia. Georgia students also enroll in programs at Emory and Mercer universities, the Morehouse School of Medicine and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, which has a campus in metro Atlanta.
Decatur resident Will Galvin applied to the Medical College because of the good feedback he's heard from friends enrolled there. Galvin, an Emory University graduate who recently returned from Senegal with the Peace Corps, was also attracted to the smaller classes found in the satellite campuses.
And there's the price. Tuition there was about $22,500 for the 2010-11 academic year, while the state's private colleges charged between nearly $34,500 to $43,300, according to the Georgia Board for Physician Workforce.
"It will save me a ton of money," Galvin said. "Not knowing what will happen with the economy it makes sense to keep my debt as low as I can."
The next step for the college is finding residency slots for students. Less than 30 percent of the school's students remain in Georgia for their residency, according to state physician workforce board.
The University System of Georgia has about about 2,100 residency positions with hospitals and a task force recommended adding 400 more in the near future. Georgia Health Sciences University President Ricardo Azziz said the system would need about 1,400 new positions to be at the national average.
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