Northeast Georgia Medical Center’s first class of 19 internal medicine residents recently graduated from the hospital’s residency program.
The program, which initially offered residencies in general surgery and internal medicine, now provides three additional specialties. With the addition of family medicine, emergency medicine and psychiatry, NGMC’s residency has boomed since its creation in 2019.
There are now 150 residents in the program, and the hospital system hopes to have 200 residents across its five specialty areas by 2024. This would make NGMC one of the largest graduate medical education programs in the state.
Vice president of medical education for Northeast Georgia Health System Dr. John Delzell said the program's goal is to keep residents in Georgia.
“One of the things that the Georgia Workforce Commission had found over the years was that Georgia was a net exporter of physicians,” Dr. Delzell said. “So we would train them in our medical schools here and then they would go off to residency programs in other places, maybe outside of Georgia. Once they got established in another state, a lot of times they wouldn't come back.”
Officials at NGHS decided to pursue graduate medical education in 2016 after former Gov. Nathan Deal, the Georgia State Legislature and the Georgia Board of Regents approved the Graduate Medical Education program.
“That program is really designed to encourage hospital systems to start residency programs to meet the need of the growing population of Georgia,” Dr. Delzell said.
Dr. Delzell said residents are more likely to stay close to where they completed their residency.
“If they're from Georgia and they do their residency training in Georgia, they're 80-85% likely to stay in Georgia,” Dr. Delzell said. “And about 75% of graduates stay within 50 miles of where they did their residency training.”
Out of the 19-person inaugural internal medicine class, seven residents plan to stay in Georgia. Five out of these seven residents will specifically remain in Hall County. Other recent graduates are on to complete fellowships, and Dr. Delzell hopes they will return to Georgia at the end of their fellowship.
As Hall County and northeast Georgia continue to experience growth, physicians need to keep up with the population expansion as well. Dr. Delzell believes that the most successful hospitals provide learning and teaching opportunities for doctors.
“That's what really is an extra benefit from these residency programs,” Dr. Delzell said. “That helps us to really deliver the best care that we can to the people of northeast Georgia.”
