”We acquired 130 acres of land in Moultrie, Colquitt County, right in the center of
Southwest Georgia. We donated 30 acres, and kept the remaining 100, and the College
built and opened PCOM South Georgia in 2019. There is the potential for growth; you could have housing on the back half, where
you get a nice residential feel, with a spring-fed lake and a creek and pine trees
and native grasses. There’s a whole lot of wildlife back there too: deer, quail, turkey;
they all make their home in this little rolling area in the bottomland. … As real
estate developers, we understand the need for medical buildings in Moultrie. We have
a development on 15 acres less than a mile to the south of PCOM South Georgia, right
by the hospital. The building started out with one OB/GYN practice, and now we have
nine medical buildings there. It was a very positive investment experience, and it
gave us the sense of the possibilities if we were to have a school to educate physicians
and other healthcare professionals on the tract of land. … We believed that having
a medical school here would be good for the health of South Georgia. National statistics
show that when health professionals finish their training, they often settle within
50 or 60 miles of their place of training for the duration of their career. That’s
proved true for the first classes; the majority of those who graduate from PCOM South
Georgia plan to stay in Southwest Georgia. … We’re a rural county with poultry processing,
cotton, peanuts, soybeans, corn. Our economy is split between agribusiness, government,
manufacturing and retail. Our YMCA has been around for 100 years, our arts center
is second to none for a community of our size, and our diving facility has attracted
Olympians who come here to train. … People are coming to Southwest Georgia. About
50 percent of our high school graduating classes return to Colquitt County to live
and work. They recognize the great quality of life. They desire to live and raise
their children here. … We’re so glad that PCOM came into the region with the self-interest
of educating healthcare professionals and the shared interest of improving health
care for Georgians. The College wanted to make Moultrie a better community, and they
certainly have. We are honored to be part of the PCOM story.”
Digest, the magazine for alumni and friends of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, is published by the Office of Marketing and Communications. The magazine reports on osteopathic and other professional trends of interest to alumni of the College’s Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) and graduate programs at PCOM, PCOM Georgia and PCOM South Georgia.
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