ATLANTA --- Negotiations with hospitals in Athens and Gainesville for medical-student residencies remain on pace, officials with the Medical College of Georgia told a committee of the Board of Regents on Wednesday.

The reason the college is building a satellite campus in Athens is to access more hospitals that could hire doctors as residents for the hands-on clinical experience they need since hospitals in Augusta don't have enough additional slots.

Dr. Barbara Schuster, dean of the Athens campus, told the committee she is negotiating with top officials at the hospitals and has agreed to their request to hire an assistant dean to work with them in overseeing the residency program.

Hammering out the details is expected to take some time, said Dr. Dan Rahn, the president of MCG.

"This is a particularly complicated arena because of the involvement of multiple hospitals," he said.

He said none of the hospitals is big enough to sustain a residency program by itself, so collaboration is required to make sure residents can study in all seven clinical areas of medicine spread among the three hospitals.

Albany's hospital, however, did just sign a residency agreement. The Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital has offered some training positions to MCG students for the past 12 years.

MCG's 15 full-time Athens faculty members are at work writing curricula, drafting exams and meeting with their colleagues in Augusta, according to Dr. Schuster.

The regents agreed Wednesday to request $900,000 more from the General Assembly for MCG's expansion.

Dr. Rahn said the amount of increases will be $2.5 million in the coming years until the expansion is complete.