By Doug Carlson 
 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida State University College of Medicine and the Lee Memorial Health System Board of Directors today announced plans to create a family medicine residency program in Fort Myers.
 
The program, expected to produce six new family practice physicians a year when at full capacity, will be the first allopathic residency program south of Tampa/St. Petersburg along Florida’s southwest coast. Among the fastest growing regions in the state, the area is in need of more physicians to take care of a population that grew by more than 40 percent in Lee County between 2000 and 2010.
 
“This is an exciting first for Southwest Florida,” said Richard Akin, chairman of the board of Lee Memorial Health System. “Bringing a medical residency program to our community will improve the delivery of health care to our residents, and the opportunity to partner with Florida State University’s medical school enhances our community’s reputation as well.”
 
The family medicine residency program will be based at Lee Memorial Hospital with the Florida State University College of Medicine as its institutional sponsor. The program could begin taking applications from prospective residents as early as 2012 and admit its first class in July 2013.
 
Medical school graduates are required to complete residency training in their chosen specialty in order to gain board certification and become an independently practicing physician. Numerous studies have shown that most physicians end up practicing near where they completed residency training.
 
At present, Florida ranks 43rd nationally in the number of residents per 100,000 population, despite being the fourth-most-populous state in the country.
 
“In reaching our 10th anniversary with full enrollment and a great track record of success, we are now seeing the need to have more residency programs around the state to train our graduates and provide Florida communities with the doctors they most need,” said John P. Fogarty, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine, a board-certified family physician and chair of the Florida Council of Medical School Deans.
 
“One of the top priorities of my fellow medical school deans here in Florida is to support increasing the number of residency positions in Florida,” Fogarty said.
 
To date, 450 physicians have graduated from the FSU College of Medicine, which first accepted students in 2001. Family medicine and internal medicine are the top two residency program choices for College of Medicine alumni.
 
In 2011, 17 percent of Florida State’s 114 medical school graduates entered family medicine residency programs, with more than half of those heading out of state for residency training.
 
Nationally, 8.4 percent of all graduating U.S. medical students chose family medicine in 2011.
 
“Even though the number of our graduates to complete residency training at this point is relatively small, there is evidence that when they train in Florida it keeps them in Florida, especially in the communities where their training takes place,” said Alma Littles, M.D., senior associate dean for medical education and academic affairs at the FSU College of Medicine and a former Florida Family Physician of the Year.
 
“For example, all seven College of Medicine alumni who completed a family medicine residency program in Tallahassee in June now are practicing in North Florida,” Littles said.
 
Of the 47 FSU College of Medicine graduates to complete graduate medical education in Florida, 42 (89 percent) are now practicing in Florida.
 
Funding for graduate medical education comes from a variety of sources, primarily from the federal government through Medicare. The number of federally funded residency training slots was capped in 1997 by the Balanced Budget Act. Florida has seen dramatic population increases in the interim, but its available number of residency slots has held steady.
 
“As the baby boomer population ages, we are going to need more primary care physicians in our community,” said Scott Nygaard, M.D., chief medical officer of physician services for Lee Memorial Health System. “We are creating this training program to address that need, and we are making the necessary financial commitment to create a pipeline of primary care physicians who will make Southwest Florida their home.”
 
The residency program will be the fourth for the FSU College of Medicine, which also sponsors programs in pediatrics and obstetrics-gynecology (in Pensacola) and internal medicine (in Tallahassee).
 
“The College of Medicine commends Lee Memorial Health System for recognizing the return on investment to the patient community by training more primary care physicians, despite limitations in federal funding,” said Christopher Mulrooney, assistant dean for graduate medical education and chief operating officer of the College of Medicine faculty practice plan.
 
“The reality is that health care cannot be provided to those who need it without enough providers to do the job,” Mulrooney said. “Lee Memorial understands that reality.”
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CONTACT: Doug Carlson, FSU College of Medicine
(850) 694-3735; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu 
-or-
Mary Briggs, Lee Memorial Health System
(239) 454-8765; mary.briggs@leememorial.org

The Florida State University College of Medicine has been granted a maximum eight-year accreditation by the sanctioning body of U.S. medical schools.
 
With the favorable ruling from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), Florida State becomes the first new medical school of the 21st century to be reaccredited.
 
“This news was not unexpected based on the remarkable outcomes this medical school has produced since the first class of 30 students arrived in 2001,” said College of Medicine Dean John P. Fogarty. “The leaders, administrators, faculty and students who helped plan and build this program should be extremely proud, as should all of our friends and supporters.”
 
LCME accreditation occurs every eight years as part of a nearly two-year process that includes a rigorous self-study by the applying institution and a thorough inspection from the LCME site visit team. Florida State’s site visit took place in early April.
 
The survey team was made up of representatives from six medical schools and included two deans, a professor of internal medicine, a fourth-year medical student, a vice dean for academic affairs and an associate dean for medical education.
 
Their report served as the basis for the LCME’s decision regarding Florida State’s compliance with accreditation standards in five areas: institutional setting, educational program for the M.D. degree, medical students, faculty and educational resources. Only LCME-accredited institutions may receive federal grants for medical education and participate in federal loan programs.
 
In addition, attendance at an LCME-accredited program is required for U.S. allopathic medical students before they can take the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam or enter residency programs approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
 
“Institutional accreditation assures that medical education takes place in a sufficiently rich environment to foster broad academic purposes,” said Dr. Alma Littles, senior associate dean for medical education and academic affairs at the College of Medicine.
 
In its letter of accreditation, the LCME cited several areas of strength within the program at Florida State:
 
·         “The College of Medicine is a student-centered, educationally focused organization in which decision making and priority setting are guided by its primary mission to develop exemplary, patient-oriented physicians.”
 
·         “The College of Medicine has a long-standing, well-organized and successful program for pipeline development and recruitment of students of diverse backgrounds.”
 
·         “The community faculty apprenticeship model of clinical education provides students with the opportunity to see large numbers of patients, to be involved in all aspects of their care, and to be closely observed for development of competence in their roles as physicians.”
 
·         “The College of Medicine should be commended for an impressive faculty development program, particularly for the diverse nature of the offerings and the sheer volume of effort expended to support the development of faculty on an ongoing basis.”
 
·         “The retention rate for community faculty is high, creating a stable educational platform for the clinical program.”
 
Florida State is one of four fully accredited allopathic medical schools in Florida, along with those at the universities of Florida, Miami and South Florida.
 
Florida State began formal preparations for its LCME site visit in November 2009, conducting an exhaustive self-study involving more than 100 faculty, staff, administrators and students. The study took more than 18 months to complete.
 
Since first gaining full accreditation status in 2005, the Florida State University College of Medicine has opened new regional campuses in Sarasota, Fort Pierce and Daytona Beach and rural clinical training sites in Marianna and Immokalee; graduated seven classes; and grown from around 170 medical students to a full enrollment of 480. The new regional campuses are in addition to previously opened campuses in Orlando, Pensacola and Tallahassee.
 
LCME site-visit committee members indicated they were impressed by how well Florida State administers its community-based program, which sends third- and fourth-year students to cities across the state to receive one-on-one clinical training from experienced physicians. The learning takes place where the vast majority of people receive their health care, giving students the opportunity to directly interact with patients and take part in the types of cases they are most likely to encounter as practicing physicians.
 
The model is credited with helping Florida State produce a greater percentage of graduates entering primary care residency programs than any other medical school in the state since 2005.
 
“Our graduation and match statistics, our strong board scores and student performance with our community model, and the impacts we are having across the state have validated that this model is working and working very well,” Fogarty said. “We appreciated having an opportunity to share examples of that success with our LCME site visitors.”
 
The LCME is a joint committee of the American Medical Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges.
 
 

October 2011

What began as a big week for the Florida State University College of Medicine became even bigger. On Oct. 21, two days after celebrating the news that it had been reaccredited for eight years by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the college got similar news about its graduate medical education program.

That vote of confidence from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education means the medical school can continue to be a sponsoring institution for residency programs, the next step for medical students after their M.D. degree. The College of Medicine has two such programs at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola: one in pediatrics and one in obstetrics-gynecology. It also is launching an internal medicine residency program with Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and a family medicine one with Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers.

“As the first new medical school of the 21st century, it’s very meaningful to have outside validation of the successful outcomes our program is producing,” said Dr. Alma Littles, senior associate dean for medical education and academic affairs.

“We are working hard to prepare our students to be successful in their graduate medical education following the completion of medical school. We’ve seen this hard work paying off in the feedback we get from residency program directors about the quality of our graduates, including the high percentage of our graduates who are awarded chief resident status.

“With this seal of approval from the ACGME, we have a clear statement that we also will be there to help provide excellent training opportunities beyond medical school.”