MACON, Ga. — This morning at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce Eggs and Issues breakfast, Gov. Brian Kemp unveiled his $2 billion spending bill.
There were several categories included in the funding measure like transportation, infrastructure and health funding for medical facilities at the University of Georgia and Georgia Southern University.
UGA already has a medical school in partnership with the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. This would be a separate medical school in Athens.
Georgia Southern would receive $178 million in funding to create a new dental school in Statesboro.
According to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Georgia has over 40,000 job openings in the healthcare industry. They predict job openings will grow to 60,000 in the next two years.
So far, the chamber has already provided funding to schools to expand their resources to get more students into the medical field. One of the schools that received funding was Mercer School of Medicine.
Jean Sumner, dean at the Mercer School of Medicine, says Mercer is working to address the shortage.
"You have to care about people, you have to be able to communicate and of course have to be smart but that said it's more than just being smart. There are a lot of other factors. We try to select the right people and also. We try to select people that care about what we're doing and that care about rural Georgia and that respect the people in rural Georgia," Sumner said.
The Georgia Hospital Association reports there's a rising demand for these jobs. More than 20% of the workforce, like registered nurses, physicians and clinical techs are likely to retire in in the next decade.
For registered nurse Jennifer Davis, she hopes to stick around for a long time because nursing is her passion. Davis says her favorite about nursing is meeting new people and helping them get the care they need.
She says that's why the healthcare industry is important.
"We could never do it alone. We have to have multiple hands in there. I could never do it alone with one person," Davis said.
Sumner says having different initiatives at the Mercer School of Medicine helps students excel. It is how they are helping reduce the current healthcare shortage.
"We only accept Georgians and we preferentially accept young people who care about our mission and who maybe come from rural Georgia," Sumner said.
The state chamber reports by 2030, the Peach State will need over 100,000 healthcare workers.
Stephanie Roseboro is a nurse manager at Piedmont Macon. She says adding another medical school will help more students see what the day-to-day is like for someone in the medical field.
"Having more people coming through here doing their rotations and clinicals is going to give them a better idea of what a great community this is and also what the need is," Roseboro said.
Sumner says doctors are needed in rural Georgia too because they face a health desert too.
"There are counties in Georgia that have no doctors and one of the counties we put a clinic in had no doctor to 36,000 people," Sumner said.
Kemp also wants to allocate funds to the workforce housing fund by June of this year.