Meet the medical students from the Augusta University/UGA Medical Partnership
Authored by M. Tresa Chappell, MD
AU/UGA Medical Partnership
Clinical Educator & Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
If you have been to the hospital or the doctor’s office in and around Athens you may have noticed individuals in short white coats working with your physician. These are medical students who are attending the Augusta University/University of Georgia (AU/UGA) Medical Partnership. The AU/UGA Medical Partnership was started in 2010 to address the physician shortages in Georgia. It is a partnership between UGA, the birthplace of higher education in America, and the Medical College of Georgia, one of the country’s first–and Georgia’s only—public medical school.
During the first two years of medical school, medical students study foundational and clinical sciences in a hybrid curriculum consisting primarily of small-group learning supplemented by interactive large-group sessions. In their first year they focus on how the body should work and in the second year they learn about diseases that result when things go wrong in the body and how to treat them. During their third and fourth years, students rotate through private practices, community clinics, and hospitals across Northeast Georgia, applying the knowledge they acquired during the first two years in clinical settings.
The white coat symbolizes “professionalism, caring and trust, which they must earn from patients” (AMA Journal of Ethics). The students receive their short white coats during their first year of medical school and their long white coat after graduation. In their first year, they begin learning how to interview and examine patients using trained volunteers who serve as patients. In their second year, they get to start proudly wearing their short white coats in the hospital where they practice interviewing and examining real patients under the supervision of experienced physicians. First and second year students also study community and population health through service-learning projects with local community partners.
How long does it take to become a physician?
Students must complete a four-year undergraduate program and four years of medical school to become a medical doctor. After graduation from medical school, they then complete a residency program lasting 3 to 7 years, depending on the specialty they choose, during which they practice medicine under the supervision of an attending physician. So, it takes 11 to 15 years after completing high school to become a fully licensed physician.
What are the benefits of being in a teaching hospital/clinc?
A teaching hospital is one that is affiliated with a medical school and teaches medical students, resident physicians, and other healthcare professionals. St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens is a teaching hospital and you may be interviewed and/or examined by a medical student during your time in the hospital or at an affiliated clinic. This means you may be asked to repeat your history and physical exam with a resident physician and/or attending physician after completing it with the medical student.
Having contact with patients is essential for training medical students. Both patients and the healthcare team benefit from this interaction. How? Here are three ways:
- The teaching physicians who train the next generation of doctors commit themselves to staying current on best practices and new innovations in medicine.
- As a patient, you will have the benefit of having multiple people caring for you and thinking about your medical condition and treatment.
- Everyone involved will be playing an essential role in ensuring our region, state and nation have the highly skilled physicians our families need for all aspects of healthcare.
Medical students are the essential, emerging healthcare workforce. By participating in their education you are helping secure the future of medicine. You always have the right to decide whether or not you want to interact with a medical student. As a patient you have the unique opportunity to be an educator and leave a lasting impression on medical students that will shape how they practice medicine.
About the Augusta University / University of Georgia Medical Partnership
The Augusta University / University of Georgia Medical Partnership is a four-year medical school campus of the Medical College of Georgia. In 2009, the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and the University of Georgia partnered to create a four-year medical school campus in Athens to alleviate a statewide shortage of physicians that threatens the health of Georgians. The AU/UGA Medical Partnership combines the significant instructional and research resources of UGA, the birthplace of public higher education, with the expertise one of the country’s first, and Georgia’s only public medical school, the Medical College of Georgia.