TIFTON — Five area hospitals have amassed a $1 million war chest to help attract and retain doctors through four planned residency programs in Southwest Georgia.

There is a shortage of physicians in the area, and projections are that unless something is done to change the equation that shortage will turn critical by 2016, officials said.



Colquitt Regional Medical Center currently has the equivalent of the services of about 69 physicians and hopes to increase that number to 90 in six years. The 69 figure does not mean that number of actual doctors as it factors in “physician extenders” such as midwives, nurse practitioners and physician assistants.



Colquitt Regional has joined with Archbold Medical Center in Thomasville, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta, and Tift Regional Medical Center in Tifton to attract and retain physicians throughout the region.



Worrying to hospitals are statistics showing that 80 percent students who graduate this year from the Medical College of Georgia will enter residency programs in other states and that 60 percent of them will enter practices within 75 miles of their residency location.



“When I heard those statistics, that was a watershed moment for me,” CRMC President and CEO Jim Lowry said. “That’s when I realized that 80 percent of the doctors educated with our tax dollars are leaving the state with a very low probability of returning. I think that was our call to action.”



The five hospitals each pledged $100,000 toward the effort, with the Medical College of Georgia matching their $500,000 for a total of $1 million.



Of the five, only Phoebe Putney currently has a residency program, which caters to medical students entering family practice. The hospitals hope to add residency programs in internal medicine, general surgery, obstetrics and emergency room physicians.



The plan calls for locating one of the programs at each of the four remaining hospitals.



The process of establishing a program takes time, Lowry said. If a hospital begins the process in January 2011, for example, it would take 18 to 24 months to gain accreditation.



The medical facility then would have an additional 36-month period to accept students, Lowry said. The number of students in the program at the end of the 36-month period would be the maximum number for which Medicare would provide financial assistance.



Medicare would provide 70 percent of costs, with the remaining 30 percent paid locally, Lowry said.



Among his suggestions for attracting physicians to the area are having medical schools accept a certain number of students from Southwest Georgia as they are more likely to return to practice, and a program to help pay their tuition costs.



“This is not just a reality that we will build the program and they will come,” he said. “You’ll find other communities nationwide that will be paying students to come and (will) take care of their loans. Those types of programs are being discussed nationwide.



“But if you don’t have a (residency) program to put them in, you can’t attract them.”



Lowry said he does not know the annual cost of a residency program in Colquitt County. Hospitals will be seeking funds from the Georgia General Assembly and U.S. Congress as well as local funding for the program.



“If we are going to keep doctors in Southwest Georgia, we’ve got to create a Graduate Medical Education program,” he said. “So whatever it takes to do it, we’ve got to come up with it, and I think the other CEOs are in unanimous agreement.”