|
MIAMI, Fla (Nov. 17,
2003) – The
Florida International University Board of Trustees today unanimously
approved a plan
to create an
Academic Health Center including a doctorate in medicine program
that could admit its first class as early as 2006.
“This proposal is largely based on the fact that all the building blocks
of a great new medical school are in place,” said FIU president Modesto
A. Maidique. “We have Ph.D. programs in the basic sciences, in nursing
and in engineering. An M.D. is the next logical step.”
FIU’s would be the first
public medical school in South Florida, where the University
of Miami offers the only degree program in allopathic medicine
(as opposed to homeopathy or osteopathy). Since 1970,
Miami-Dade County’s population has nearly doubled; during this time, the
number of medical school seats available has not changed substantially. The new
medical school will be in line with national priorities – articulated in
an Institute of Medicine report released this summer – as well as
state and local priorities.
Years of research and conversations
between FIU and key members of the South Florida medical community
have been summarized in a concept paper
available
on line at http://academic.fiu.edu/docs/Concept%20paper%20revised%2011-04-03%20with%20TOC.doc
The plan is based on a 1996
document devised with community and faculty
input. The new document, based on which trustees had a lively discussion
this morning,
lays our four ways in which the FIU medical school will improve the
quality of health care in the region:
- Increasing the number of culturally sensitive
under-represented minority physicians serving Southeast Florida
- Creating an affordable, accessible medical
school that directly partners with community hospitals and
health care clinics
- Advancing biomedical and scientific knowledge
through research, scholarship and direct application to the
health care needs of South Florida
- Providing alternatives for health care
access for the large, diverse Southeast Florida population
Several representatives
of local hospitals came before the board to voice their support.
The medical school plan does not call for
a university
hospital, but
rather relies on partnerships with existing medical facilities
such as
Mount Sinai Hospital, Miami Children’s Hospital, Mercy Hospital
and Baptist Hospital, in addition to community clinics.
The FIU medical school model
will emphasize the integration of all of the health and medical
education program curricula into
a single
comprehensive
program focused
on community-based health services.
While 16 percent of Floridians
and over half of the population in Miami-Dade County are Hispanic
and 20 percent of the population
in
Miami-Dade
and Broward counties are African American/Black, only 9 percent
of all physicians
in
Florida are Hispanic and only 3 percent of all physicians in
these counties are Black.
These demographics drastically affect the provisions of culturally
competent health care. As a consequence of demographic diversity
and the multicultural
nature of its population, the health care industry needs in
our community are unique. In addition, the plan notes that
Florida
medical schools
only produce
about 500 of the nearly 3000 new doctors in the State needs
each year. Tuition at the FIU medical school would be similar
to that
of the other
three public
medical schools in the state: currently at about $10,000 a
year.
The plan approved today will
be refined and presented to the Florida Board of Governors
and will ultimately have to be approved
by the
Legislature.
Several trustees spoke about
a favorable political climate for a new medical school and
mentioned Gov. Jeb Bush’s plan to
attract the Scripps Research Institute to Palm Beach County as
a potential enhancement to the plan for a medical
school at FIU.
“If we blink we might
not get another opportunity,” said Board of Trustees
Chair Adolfo Henriques. “The compelling case is
made in the data that we absolutely need a public medical
school in this community
and the resources for
that education to take place.”
|