Laurie Ott’s fourth leadership position in her impressive 30-year CSRA career may be her most challenging. She’s playing catch up with the influx of businesses and employees moving to the Peach State. For 11 straight years, a trade publication voted Georgia the top-ranked state to do business. However, there is a major impact on additional employees and families moving here.
“We need 1,500 more nurses in the CSRA,” she said Friday at the 2nd Annual Columbia County School District Career Health Expo.
Ott says there is also a huge statewide shortage of doctors—she said 5,351 more physicians would bring Georgia up to average in the U.S.
In January, she became the principal consultant for the Georgia Higher Education Healthcare Initiative, based in Augusta.
Ott’s organization helped sponsor this day of learning and believes the sooner CSRA students “catch the healthcare fever” the better. More than 400 11th-grade students from Columbia County’s five high schools learned the various career possibilities. The students are enrolled in a second-year pathway program and attended a workshop and Expo featuring more than 20 healthcare employers and admission reps at local colleges and universities.
“Students are able to take a progression of three courses (pathways), where the third course often leads to a certification like medical assisting, and they are able to get that certification while still in high school,” said Brooks Smith, the College and Career Readiness Director the CCSD. “We try to put them in a work-based learning internship as well, when they are a senior,” added Smith.
Victoria Abell is a senior at Greenbrier High School in Evans and an intern at Augusta Plastic Surgery. She is deciding whether she wants a career as a doctor or nurse—perhaps, in this expanding field of medicine. “I’ve been in the clinic with the doctors. I’ve met Botox patients with the nurse and have gotten to spend time with the front desk person and social media coordinator, “said Ms. Abell.
Regency Hospice has an office behind Sam’s Club on Professional Parkway on the Columbia/Richmond County border. Regency was one of the employers at the Health Career event and thinks it’s important to exhibit from an educational aspect.
“Students have to be 16 and then they can provide support for our patients through our volunteer program. Hospice services are one of those services that are not well known or talked about,” said Amber Cooper, Executive Director of Regency Hospice.
Laurie Ott and a key data person are studying the numbers across the Peach State and studying best practices in other states to help increase the number of physicians and nurses. She credits her time, leading efforts at the University/Piedmont Hospital Foundation for understanding the need in our community and in Georgia. She has a simple message for parents—and directly for students thinking about a career in the medical field. “You cannot get into good medical schools unless you do well in Math and Science. You have to be good at Math and Science to be a doctor or nurse.”
She hopes Pathway programs in the Columbia County Schools help eventually reduce the shortage of doctors and nurses in Georgia.
