A state legislative commission studying maternal and infant health in Georgia released its final recommendations this week, finding that nearly 90% of the state’s maternal deaths were preventable. The bottleneck the report points to is a workforce problem: more than 100 empty residency slots and fewer than 70 maternal-fetal medicine doctors serving the entire state.
The Georgia Department of Public Health has reached the same conclusion in a separate review, with new mothers dying most often from cardiac complications, mental health conditions, and hypertension. The two reports together describe a system that knows how to save most of these women, paired with a training pipeline that cannot keep up with Georgia’s growth. The commission’s prescription is to fund the pipeline, with the goal of growing the in-state physician pool.
Georgia’s Maternal Deaths Are a Workforce Problem
Georgia has invested in graduate medical education and watched its physician pool fall behind. The state’s population is growing too fast for the physician workforce to keep up, the commission’s report said, even as training programs absorb new graduates each year. The final recommendations are built around closing that gap, with the goal of cutting preventable maternal deaths in the years ahead.
The Department of Public Health’s separate review found that new mothers in Georgia are dying most often from cardiac complications, mental health conditions, and hypertension, the three leading causes the report identifies. Together they account for the largest share of pregnancy-related death in the state. The review found that nearly 90% of those deaths were preventable, a figure that mirrors the commission’s own finding. The two reports, the commission’s findings and the public health review, reach the same conclusion from two different angles. It frames the scale of what the recommendations are designed to fix.
Fewer Than 70 Specialists for the Whole State
Specialist access is the most visible gap. The commission’s report, drawing on the state’s maternal mortality review, found fewer than 70 reported maternal-fetal medicine doctors practicing in the state. Maternal-fetal medicine specialists are the physicians trained to manage the highest-risk pregnancies, the same cases that drive most of the cardiac, hypertensive, and mental health deaths the public health review identified.
For a rural patient, the math of access is unforgiving. The state’s population is growing too fast for the physician pool to keep up, the report said.
The recommendation to grow the maternal-fetal medicine workforce is a direct response. Filling the empty residency slots is the mechanism the report points to.
More Than 100 Empty Residency Slots
Residency is where the workforce is built. The state has over 100 vacant residency slots in family medicine, obstetrics, and pediatrics, the report said. All three are considered core primary care specialties.
Each empty slot is a training seat the state has funding for but no physician to fill. Residency programs are funded through graduate medical education payments, and when a position goes unfilled, the dollars earmarked for it typically go unused.
Family medicine, obstetrics, and pediatrics are the three core primary care specialties the report ties to the gap. The physician pipeline is not keeping up with the population. The commission’s report projects continued shortages of OB-GYN and family medicine specialists, even as Georgia continues to invest in graduate medical education. The bottleneck, the report said, is that population growth is outpacing the pipeline.
Those seats, the report said, are training capacity the state is paying for and not using. The commission’s final recommendations are built around closing the gap with federal and state dollars, starting with family medicine, obstetrics, and pediatrics. The goal is to keep more Georgia-trained doctors practicing in Georgia, where the report says they are most likely to stay.
Why Doctors Trained in Georgia Stay in Georgia
Where a doctor trains shapes where a doctor practices. The commission’s report points to a simple pattern: medical students who work in Georgia are far more likely to stay in Georgia.
That pattern is what makes the empty slots count. The pipeline the report describes runs through three steps, and the residency slot is the first of them. The downstream effect is that a doctor trained in Georgia is a doctor who stays in Georgia, the report said.
- Medical students work in Georgia during training.
- Graduates enter residency programs, often in state.
- Doctors who train here stay here to practice.
The 100-plus empty residency slots, the report said, are the missing first step in that pipeline. The commission’s final recommendations are built around filling them with state and federal dollars.
Tapping Federal and State Dollars to Fill the Slots
The commission’s answer to the workforce gap is financial. Untapped federal dollars, supplemented by the state, could help fill those slots, Laurie Ott of the Georgia Higher Education Healthcare Initiative said, and that recommendation is included in the final report.
It’s [a] quality and quantity problem for Georgia. We don’t have enough and we don’t have enough high quality slots to keep our own graduates of our medical schools.
Ott’s framing covers both sides of the gap. Georgia has too few residency seats overall, and the seats it does fund are not always in the specialties or the locations that would retain Georgia-trained graduates. Federal graduate medical education dollars flow to states that draw them down, and the commission’s argument is that Georgia has been leaving those dollars on the table. The match would let the state tap into federal funding it has historically underused. The fix is a federal-state match, the report said.
The recommendation is straightforward. Pair federal graduate medical education funding with state dollars to fill the residency pipeline in family medicine, obstetrics, and pediatrics, and add the seats the state expects to need as its population continues to grow.
Georgia’s Infant Mortality Ranking Puts the Crisis in Context
Georgia sits just outside the top 10 states for high rates of infant mortality, the commission’s report said, a parallel measure of strain on the perinatal system. The ranking is the result of the same access gap that drives the maternal mortality data. One of the named causes is difficulty in access to specialists, the report said. The state’s population is growing too fast for the physician pool to keep up.
That ranking frames the commission’s recommendations in national terms. A 2026 ranking placing Georgia fifth worst for having a baby reaches the same conclusion about access to maternal care in the state, citing maternity care deserts and fewer providers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a maternal-fetal medicine specialist?
Maternal-fetal medicine specialists are physicians trained to manage the highest-risk pregnancies, including cases involving hypertension, cardiac complications, and other conditions that drive most preventable maternal deaths in Georgia. The commission’s report found fewer than 70 of them practicing in the state. The commission’s recommendations are built around growing that pool.
What did the commission recommend?
The commission’s final recommendations, released this week, are built around filling the more than 100 vacant residency slots in family medicine, obstetrics, and pediatrics. The funding mechanism is untapped federal graduate medical education dollars, supplemented by state money, Laurie Ott of the Georgia Higher Education Healthcare Initiative said. Ott framed the gap as both a quantity and a quality problem. The state, she said, lacks enough training seats to retain its own medical school graduates.
Why does the residency pipeline matter for maternal deaths?
A simple pattern drives the commission’s logic: medical students who work in Georgia are far more likely to stay in Georgia. The 100-plus empty residency slots are unfilled training seats in the specialties that anchor maternal and infant care, and filling them is how the commission expects to grow the in-state pool of obstetricians, family physicians, and pediatricians.
Where can I read the full reports?
The Current GA and GPB News reported on the commission’s final recommendations. The Georgia Department of Public Health maintains a program page on the state’s maternal mortality review committee. The page is at dph.georgia.gov/maternal-mortality.
