PCOM South Georgia announces its partnership with Emory University as part of its recently announced five-year $5 million cooperative agreement with the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The goal of the program is to increase the geriatric workforce within the primary care network of physicians by educating healthcare professionals to care for the aging population of patients.

This is the third time Emory has received funding from HRSA but is the first time PCOM South Georgia has joined as an academic partner. The funding will support Georgia Gear (Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program), operated through the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.

“Our role is to help educate student physicians in the field of geriatrics and encourage them to consider specializing in this field,” said Marla Golden, DO ‘88, dean of the osteopathic medicine program at PCOM South Georgia. “Rural Georgia faces a shortage of physicians across the board. We’re already trying to meet that need. Geriatrics is a field with a critical need, and that need is only going to grow as the population ages.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2034 the number of adults age 65 and older will be greater than the number of children for the first time in U.S. history. By 2030, more than 20 percent of Georgia’s population will be 60 or older, which is an increase of nearly 34 percent over 2012. Some statisticians predict that in Georgia senior adults will outnumber children as early as 2025.

"PCOM South Georgia is excited to partner with Emory University in this HRSA cooperative agreement to improve geriatric care in the state of Georgia,” said Robert J. Lloyd, DO ‘91, assistant dean of clinical education. “Our college is committed to training osteopathic medical students to care for diverse populations in a holistic manner. This funding will give our student doctors an opportunity to advance their knowledge and training to provide much-needed healthcare to the geriatric population in many underserved regions throughout the state of Georgia.”

With this increase in the population of older adults comes an increase in the need for health care professionals to care for them. That’s where PCOM South Georgia comes in. With a location in the rural southwestern part of the state, POCM South Georgia is ideally located in an area where aspiring physicians can obtain hands-on experience working with doctors who specialize in geriatric medicine.

“We will offer an elective clinical rotation for our third- and fourth-year doctor of osteopathic medicine students beginning this fall,” Golden said. “This means that while these students are completing their clinical rotations, they will have the opportunity to choose a geriatric rotation as one of their electives. During this rotation, a student will be paired with a primary care physician who specializes in providing care for elderly patients. This will give students experience working with the elderly and may encourage them to choose geriatrics as their residency specialty after they graduate from medical school and complete a primary care residency.”