Georgia Senate Appropriations Chairman Blake Tillery and state House Speaker Jon Burns, in Statesboro this week, revealed that money has been set aside in the state budget — still awaiting Gov. Brian Kemp's signature — to create a medical school at Georgia Southern University in partnership with Augusta University, home of the Medical College of Georgia.

By fall 2024, the school, to be based at Georgia Southern's Armstrong campus in Savannah, could begin receiving medical students on their way to becoming doctors, according to Burns. But it was Tillery who mentioned the funding first during the Building a Better Bulloch Together luncheon, hosted by Morris Bank on April 27 with a panel of four state lawmakers. Tillery, who hails from Vidalia and represents District 19 in the Senate, made the revelation in the course of praising the Statesboro area's educational and legislative clout.

"But even more than that, you've got the speaker over here," Tillery said. "The speaker is absolutely committed to making sure that Southeast Georgia has the health care that it needs for a growing population."

He said Burns had taken notice that Georgia has one state-funded medical school, based in Augusta, which now operates a satellite medical school in Athens, and asked, "Why do we not have one of those in southern Georgia?"

Although he just became speaker with this year's session, Burns, who lives in northern Effingham County and represents District 159, which includes part of Bulloch, has served 18 years in the state House.

"The speaker was able to cajole — maybe that's the right word … and help the Board of Regents (of the University System of Georgia) to understand why it matters," Tillery continued. 

"So there's seed money in this year's budget, I guess still awaiting the governor's signature, that would create a medical school, being the first partner medical school in Savannah that's tied in with Georgia Southern and also with … Augusta University, and that's a huge start," he said.

Mercer University, a private university based in Macon, has long had a relationship with Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, which serves as a teaching hospital for Mercer medical students on their way to becoming doctors. Meanwhile, Georgia Southern's School of Nursing, with classes on both the Statesboro and the Armstrong campuses, offers degrees up to a Doctor of Nursing Practice, but Georgia Southern has no program for training physicians.

Like Athens program

The Athens program Tillery mentioned is the Augusta University-University of Georgia Medical Partnership, launched from a 2009 agreement. Last May, 41 students received their M.D. degrees in Athens as the partnership's Class of 2022, but more students typically start than finish annually.

"The first cohort of 40 new physicians will be in place at Georgia Southern in partnership with Augusta … University … in 2024," Burns said during the April 27 forum. He was actually referring to medical students on their way to becoming physicians.

Tillery had mentioned $6 million as an approximation of the proposed funding for the partnership medical school.

Burns, in a brief interview after the luncheon, noted two sums that add up to about $6.5 million. "Almost $1.7 million" is included in the pending fiscal year 2024 budget, with $4.8 million proposed for the two following years, he said.

After that, the program should "stand on its own," Burns said.

Although the Senate Appropriations chairman had referred to "seed money," the House speaker said current funds, budgeted pending the governor's signature, will pay for construction.

Repurposed buildings

"These are actual construction funds as we go back and repurpose some buildings without having to build anything new," Burns said. "We're just repurposing some buildings on the Armstrong campus, and that's why we're able to do it so economically."

From the first cohort of 40 med students, the program is expected to ramp up to 120 in future years, he said.

"You haven't heard much about it yet because the governor hasn't signed the budget yet," Burns told the Statesboro Herald. "So, we got a little ahead of the governor, but I think he's going to sign it. You know, the investment is pretty low to establish a medical school, but we're able to do it because the buildings are in place at Armstrong, they're underutilized there. … So we're ready to go."

The other lawmakers on the Building a Better Bulloch panel, Republicans like Burns and Tillery, were Bulloch County residents Sen. Billy Hickman and Rep. Lehman Franklin.

Tillery succeeded the late Sen. Jack Hill as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Hickman serves from Senate District 4, which was Hill's district, but gave up its last portion of Hill's home county, Tattnall, to Tillery and District 19 in the reapportionment based on the 2020 census. Franklin, the newest legislator on the panel, joined the House this year as the District 160 representative, succeeding now-retired Rep. Jan Tankersley.