'All boats are going to rise': Upgraded GSU medical campus will help keep docs in Savannah

Georgia's public medical school is expanding by upgrading its clinical campus for third- and fourth-year students at Georgia Southern University to a full four-year satellite school.

The new campus of the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Southern will accept its first class of 40 first-year medical students next year, pending approval from an accrediting body.

"We're really, really excited about the opportunities it's going to present for us and and for the state of Georgia," said Brooks Keel, president of Augusta University, which contains MCG.

The campus has three main partners — MCG will recruit and provide the students, Georgia Southern the classroom space, and St. Joseph's/Candler healthcare will provide the clinical training space. It will join MCG's main four-year campus in Augusta and one in Athens.

"What we're going to do is provide the clinical exposure to the medical students," said Paul P. Hinchey, president and CEO of the St. Joseph's/Candler hospital system, in a press conference on Thursday. "So their book learning is done essentially in the first and second year. Then they've got to put on a white jacket and get out and follow patients. ... Our job is to train them and prepare them to go into their residency."

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The relationship between MCG and St. Joseph's/Candler started 15 years ago with a weeks long clinical rotation, Hinchey said. In 2011 they started the clinical campus, where third- and fourth-year students could get hands on experience. Discussions started on a full campus about two years ago, and the final announcement took involvement not only from the universities and health system but also state elected officials and the Board of Regents.

“This partnership with Augusta University and the Medical College of Georgia is another example of how together, the governor, our legislators, the University System of Georgia and Georgia Southern University are collaborating to meet the growing needs of southeast Georgia,” Georgia Southern University President Kyle Marrero was quoted as saying in a news release.

Soon, students will be able to complete all four years of their medical training in the Savannah area. Currently, each class has 264 students, putting MCG eight or ninth in size for public medical schools.

"Adding 40 Students should make us the fourth or fifth largest medical school in the country and although that's exciting, and we're really proud to be expanding like we are, more important than that is that we will be producing more doctors that hopefully will stay in Georgia," said Keel, including ones who work in underserved areas of the state.

The announcement comes as the Wellstar Health System is set to merge with the AU Health System attached to MCG in Augusta, forming Wellstar MCG Health. As part of that, MCG will be establishing a clinical campus at Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center in Marietta. Wellstar's investment in medical education in Augusta will help the four-year campus in Savannah, Hinchey said.

"Wellstar has agreed to put in the resources ... like information technology, faculty, training centers, and will really beef up the availability in Augusta, which is going to allow the satellite sites like us to even do a better job," he said.

The University System of Georgia Board of Regents on Tuesday voted to approve a $1.69 million bond to renovate 23,000 square feet of space at the Armstrong Center and Health Professions Building at Georgia Southern. This will provide an anatomy lab, which Hinchey said is the only thing missing to upgrade the clinical campus to a full four-year school.

If the current classroom space is insufficient, St. Joseph's/Candler will pay for any expansion. The clinical campus currently has 80 faculty members who are unpaid, practicing doctors. Keel also said the University will hire some new staff to support students in Savannah as well as expanding the pool of instructors.

"We may be hiring a faculty ourselves, that would be based out of Savannah, but we'll also be taking advantage of some of the faculty that Georgia Southern has and we will be sort of using their time to help teach some of the courses, especially some of the more basic science courses," Keel said.

The agreement will benefit the Savannah area in multiple ways, Hinchey said.

"Having the students here and trained here, in addition to the nurses that are already here ... the probability of them staying here when they graduate and finishing their residency is really high," Hinchey said. "So that's going to benefit everybody here and all boats are going to rise."

Hinchey said he hopes 50% of students will stay local after graduation. Having doctors who trained in Savannah would make it easier to compete for medical talent during a national shortage of physicians.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Georgia Southern, MCG, St. Joseph's/Candler form four year med school