Georgia is facing critical shortages of health care professionals and is turning away thousands of qualified students who want to go into those fields, according to a report presented to the state Board of Regents in June.

The report blamed a lack of space and program limitations in the higher education system.

The state will need an additional 20,000 nurses, 2,100 pharmacists and 850 psychologists by 2012, Daniel Rahn, resident of the Medical College of Georgia, told the regents, and likely will fall well short of the goal.

Georgia also will need another 700 clinical social workers and 600 more dentists.

"We are only producing a third to a half of [the health care professionals] we need," said Rahn, who chaired a task force on health professions education that reported to the board. "This is not a pipeline issue. We don't have the capacity. "

Timothy Shelnut, chairman of the Board of Regents, said he was concerned by the task force's findings.

"It's a big shame to see these kinds of deficits and to know that we are turning people away," he said.

Georgia ranks 43rd in the nation in measures of health and well-being, such as infant mortality rates and premature death rates, Rahn said.

The state also has received poor grades in emergency care because of work force shortages.

The state graduates about 2,040 students who are eligible to take the registered nurse exam each year, Rahn said, but turns away as many as 4,000 students from nursing programs each year because it cannot accommodate them. Georgia's nursing schools will produce just 12,000 of the 20,000 nurses needed by 2010, he said.

The state graduates just 130 pharmacists each year from the University of Georgia, the only public pharmacy school
in Georgia. Another 100 qualified applicants are turned away, the report said.

Expanding capacity in programs throughout the state in health fields should be a priority, Rahn said. Faculty, facility and financial constraints are limiting the number of graduates and expanding shortages, the report says.

In addition to producing a greater number of nurses and health care workers, Georgia needs to focus on increasing the number of people who go into the faculty side of health care, Rahn said.

"We are putting our future at risk with a decrease in the number of people qualified to be faculty," he said.

The state ranks 39th in physician supply and 47th or lower in the supply of psychologists, social workers and dietitians.

Georgia ranks 42nd or lower in the supply of physical therapists and registered nurses.

- This article is a reprint from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.