Live, Local, Late Breaking news, weather, and sportsThere's a high shortage of doctors in Georgia

There's a high shortage of doctors in Georgia

As Georgia's population grows, the state is struggling to provide enough doctors.

We rank 40th nationwide in the number of doctors per capita.

Georgia Health Sciences University is accepting more applications.

Physicians here in South Georgia say that is the key to improving the numbers.

While the state is seeing a drastic increase in applications for its only public medical college, there are only so many spots available, local physicians say the number of students accepted needs to increase to fix Georgia's shortage of doctors.

Here in South Georgia it's not uncommon to call a doctor's office only to find they're not accepting new patients.  The American Medical Association ranks Georgia 40th on their ratio of doctors per 100,000 residents and without Atlanta it would be worse.

"If you exclude Atlanta we would be 50th in the nation in terms of Doctors per capita, we would be on the bottom of the heap," said Dr. Doug Patten, PPMH Chief Medical Officer.

Why has Georgia struggled to attract physicians, doctors say it's the few number of openings at the Medical College of Georgia.

"We have a small number of slots inside the state for medical education," said Dr. Doug Patten, PPMH Chief Medical Officer.

It's compounded by the number of graduate openings once they graduate.

"We have a small number of spots for graduate medical education inside the state where, people who've graduated from medical school go to do their specialty training," said Dr. Doug Patten, PPMH Chief Medical Officer.

If there were more openings doctors feel certain it would increase Georgia's physician numbers.

"Physicians have a better tendency to practice in an area based upon where they train so if you look for example at our family medicine residency, we like to say 60-60," said Dr. Doug Patten, PPMH Chief Medical Officer.

Meaning 60 percent of the residents practice within 60 miles of Albany.  While more medical residents are training here in southwest Georgia they still must do residency training.

"We won't see the fruits of that for three to five years," said Dr. Doug Patten, PPMH Chief Medical Officer.   

The say physicians are needed in all areas of primary care, from family medicine, to pediatrics, to internal medicine to OBGYN's. 

Dr. Doug Patten says when they can get doctors to take a look at southwest Georgia they are surprised by the technology Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital can offer for being a smaller region.  It's just getting them to look at an area they've heard little about.

The Medical College of Georgia is expected to enroll 1,200 students by August 2017 which would be a 50 percent increase from last year.

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