Mercer University and the two major hospitals in Columbus are expected to unveil plans this morning for a physician training program that could have far-reaching impact on local health care.

Macon, Ga.-based Mercer, Columbus Regional Healthcare System and St. Francis Hospital are scheduled to make their announcement at the Main Library on Macon Road, with officials laying out the details of the program, which is likely to include a two-year medical school for doctors.

“We’re looking forward to being in Columbus in the morning to make an announcement about a medical education partnership between our School of Medicine and The Medical Center and St. Francis,” Mercer Chief of Staff Larry Brumley said Thursday.

He declined to go into specifics about the plan, although Mercer and the two hospitals have been negotiating more than a year the possibility and logistics of setting up a third- and fourth-year physician training program that could eventually lead to a four-year school.

“Tomorrow we’re going to be announcing the results of all those discussions,” Brumley said.

Columbus is the largest metropolitan area in Georgia that doesn’t have a medical school of some form, Mercer President Bill Underwood said in a previous Ledger-Enquirer interview. The basic goal is to train more doctors and create a bond with them in hopes they will remain in the state, which is experiencing a critical physician shortage as the population ages and health care reform unfolds nationally.

“I think Georgia today is 40th in the nation per capita in physicians and we’re losing ground,” Underwood said previously. “So there certainly was a need for more physicians. And from the hospital’s perspective I think it’s generally accepted that academic medical centers can enhance the quality of patient care in a community.”

For the Columbus heath care sector, the ultimate goal would be to evolve into a four-year medical school with its own bricks-and-mortar campus. The first two years of a physicians’ education is primarily classroom, while training and work in hospitals such as The Medical Center and St. Francis takes place in the third and fourth years.

That’s what happened in late 2008, when Mercer and Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah, Ga., created an affiliation for a four-year program. For more than a decade prior, the school featured a two-year clinical rotation program.

Mercer School of Medicine has graduated more than 1,000 physicians since its founding in 1982, with nearly 70 percent of them remaining in Georgia.

Under the two-year medical school scenario, classroom studies for future doctors would take place at Mercer’s main campus in Macon. The students would then move here for their third and fourth years of clinical work, which features interaction with actual patients.

Columbus Regional and St. Francis traditionally have been competitors in the Columbus area, which has developed into a regional health-care hub. St. Francis is well known for its cardiology treatment and care, while Columbus Regional owns Doctors Hospital and The Medical Center. Its specialties include a regional trauma center, high-risk infant care and cancer treatment.

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Mercer medical school to unveil area ‘partnership’ with Columbus Regional, St. Francis