Founded in 1828, the Medical College of Georgia is the 13th-oldest continuously operating medical school in the United States and the third-oldest in the Southeast. MCG, Georgia’s health sciences university, has more than 2,500 students in five schools: Medicine, Allied Health Sciences, Dentistry, Graduate Studies and Nursing. Students come from most of Georgia’s 159 counties. Students from other states and foreign countries comprise approximately 2 percent of MCG’s student body. MCG offers modern classrooms and laboratories, the 540-bed MCG Medical Center, the Children’s Medical Center, extensive outpatient clinics, residence halls, a student center, a wellness center and an outstanding medical education library with more than 164,984 books and bound journals and approximately 4,000 periodicals. With approximately 5,000 faculty, staff and residents, MCG is one of the largest employers in the Augusta area. The University System of Georgia reports that during the 2007 fiscal year, an additional 3,800 jobs resulted from spending related to the institution, and its overall economic impact on the area approached nearly $1 billion