Gov. Brian Kemp, President Jay Feldstein cut ribbon on Moultrie campus
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
MOULTRIE, Ga. | This South Georgia community got something no other city in Southwest Georgia has on Tuesday — a medical school. The Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM), which has had a campus in Suwanee since 2005, opened a South Georgia campus on Tuesday. Classes will begin for 59 freshmen students on Monday.
The new school is a branch of PCOM, located in Philadelphia, Pa., which first awarded a degree in medicine in 1900.
The beautiful prime setting for the new 31 acre campus, located on land donated by two local philanthropists, consists of 75,000 square feet of newly-constructed space. Natural light streams into the building from all sides. It has been termed a “game changer” for the 17,000 population City of Moultrie. The City and Colquitt County together contributed $2.3 million toward the $30 million campus construction cost.
Getting into any medical school is difficult. Yet the Moultrie campus attracted 3,138 students for the 59 spaces in the class of 2023. One third of the new class comes from Georgia. The Suwanee campus opened in 2005 with 85 students, after 1,682 people applied.
Gov. Brian Kemp was the keynote speaker for Tuesday’s afternoon ceremony. The governor congratulated the city and county for landing the medical school.
Ginn
Brian Ginn, the campus officer for the PCOM in Suwanee, told us that the new campus was five years in the making. “We contracted with a firm to help us decide where a South Georgia campus should be located. I personally thought it would be in Tifton, what with all the academic aspect that community has. But then we realized that Moultrie is a short distance from Albany on the north, Thomasville on the south, and Tifton and Valdosta, both on the east, and would be central to a working relationship with local hospitals, which is important to us. And the local governments were easy to work with, and contributed to what we needed to make the school a reality.”
The South Georgia PCOM Campus is starting much as the Suwanee campus—relatively small, though there are plans to offer a master’s of Biomedical Science in Moultrie next year. The Suwanee campus on Old Peachtree Road now has 1,156 students in five degree programs. That includes a professional doctoral degree program in osteopathic medicine, Masters of Biomedical Sciences, Masters of Physician Assistant Studies, Doctor of Pharmacy and Doctor of Physical Therapy. The Suwanee campus consists of 193,000 square feet.
The Moultrie PCOM campus will have 20 full time faculty, plus 10 part time clinical faculty. In Suwanee, it has 85 full time faculty, and seven part time clinical faculty.
The whole idea behind the PCOM expansion into Georgia is because of the need of qualified physicians in Georgia and throughout the South. Fully 576 graduates of the Suwanee program list their address in Georgia, many in rural areas. Yet PCOM recognizes the need, especially in rural communities, for even more doctors. It is the anticipation that by establishing a program in South Georgia that many of the students will eventually establish their private practices in the rural area.
A new PCOM campus was destined for somewhere in South Georgia. The City of Moultrie turned out to be the winner!
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