Doctor shortage in Georgia remains acute in rural areas | Online Athens

Georgia’s physician shortage continues to limit patients’ access to care, especially in rural areas, a recently released report indicates.

But the report by the Georgia Board for Physician Workforce also highlights some promising trends on doctors practicing in Georgia.

The state ranked 39th in the ratio of doctors per 100,000 population in 2010, the latest year for which data are available. That’s a slight improvement from Georgia’s 40th-place ranking in 2008.

The report, for the first time, also tracked the distribution and number of physician assistants in Georgia. PAs are not physicians but are qualified to perform many of the duties that doctors routinely handle.

The doctor shortage is most critical in primary care/core specialties, which the Georgia board defines as family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, OB/GYN and general surgery.

And the primary care gaps are more critical in rural counties and some inner-city areas, said Cherri Tucker, executive director of the Board for Physician Workforce, which has been producing such reports since 1986.

“We’re not getting the physicians in fast enough to meet population demands,” Tucker said.

The overall population of Georgia increased by 18.3 percent from 2000 to 2010. The state’s physician workforce actually outpaced that, growing by 26 percent. But a breakdown of that workforce growth paints a less rosy picture.

The increase for primary care doctors was 14.5 percent, compared with 36.7 percent for specialist physicians. The numbers for family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics all improved, while ob/gyn and general surgery actually fell.

Meanwhile, the overall physician population is aging. More than half are 50 or older, the report found.

via Doctor shortage in Georgia remains acute in rural areas | Online Athens.