New residency program coming to Macon hospital

More aspiring physicians will spend their residency years in Middle Georgia thanks to a new program at Coliseum Medical Centers announced Thursday.

By 2020, the program — an academic partnership with Mercer University — will have 100 residents, which will be in addition to about 130 existing slots at the Medical Center, Navicent Health.

“This comes close to doubling the number of residencies available here in Middle Georgia,” Mercer President Bill Underwood said.

Residency programs — graduate medical education — can run from three to seven years or more of professional training under the guidance of senior physician educators. The length of residency training varies depending on the medical specialty chosen.

About 90 percent of Mercer medical graduates who do their residencies in Georgia remain in the state afterward, Underwood said, while just 52 percent come back after a residency elsewhere. That’s still a good percentage, but the new program aims to keep doctors in the state as much as possible, particularly in rural areas.

“Middle Georgia and south Georgia are among the most underserved areas in this nation,” said Dr. Jean Sumner, dean of Mercer’s medical school.

The first 14 residents are scheduled to begin the program in July 2017, with 10 of them focusing on internal medicine and four in psychiatry. In coming years, positions will be added for those concentration areas as well as for family practice, emergency medicine and transitional year residents to reach the goal of 100 slots.

Besides the potential growth of the area’s medical community, Underwood pointed out to Macon-Bibb County Mayor Robert Reichert, who was also in attendance, that it could provide an economic boost as well.

“These are good-paying jobs being brought,” Underwood said.

Lance Jones, Coliseum’s CEO, officially announced the program, which is part of a larger effort statewide to add residency positions in Georgia. For its part, Mercer will provide “faculty support, research opportunities, medical libraries and simulation support,” according to a statement.

That involvement should help continue the work Jones has seen at Coliseum.

“Our ability to influence the training through these new physicians will be paramount as we go through these next years,” he said.

It will also be an extension of what Jones described as the central focus of the hospital’s mission.

“Above all else, we’re committed to the care of human life,” he said. “That’s the business we’re in.”

This story was originally published August 4, 2016 at 11:17 AM with the headline "New residency program coming to Macon hospital."