More reports on Med School

[FIUFan]

The Orlando and Tallahassee papers are covering this story heavily in the days leading up to the presentation to the Board of Governors. Seems UCF has raised $25M toward the project in the last 90 days. This begs the question, where were they the last 10 years as FIU was doing all the heavy lifting getting this to where it is today.

(http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-money0905nov09,0,1969091.story?page=2&coll=orl-home-headlines)

Also, this article out of the Tallahassee Democrat ( www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/13117547.htm ) outlines how the Association of American Medical Colleges has done a 180 and is now endorsing the creation of new Medical schools to head-off the shortfall in doctors as we age and the population grows.

Any news from the local paper as we head into the last week? Probably not.

[FIUFanatic]

That's a nice writeup in the Tally paper with the endorsement of the President of the Association of American Medical Colleges. The more of these "outside" and "in-the-know" experts endorse our proposal, the more chances the BOR members will accept the fact of need for these med schools.

Any news from FIU's front to report? Not lately......It seems (unless our approach is behind the doors) that UCF has taken the "lead" in fundraising, with an impressive $25 million so far.....

[Steve]

it was said in an earlier post though that FIU has already put together a $30 million package.. so really FIU is ahead by $5 million

[FIUFanatic]

If that is the case, then great..Thing is that hasn't appeared in any South Florida publication nor in FIU's website or anything. Maybe they are working more behind the scenes in this respect....The Orlando paper headline was "UCF is winning the race for Millions", and here is that article's link:

www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-money0905nov09,0,1167188.story?coll=orl-home-promo

A new editioria lin the Palm Beach Post talking about Rosenberg becoming the SUS new Chancellor, discussing his backgrounds, but implying that he should not get involved with our Medical School Proposal to the BOR. In my opinion, that is like asking the General Manager of a team not to deal with acquiring or not a new player.....I wonder why they make this comment

Here's the link:

www.palmbeachpost.com/search/content/opinion/epaper/2005/11/10/a22a_chancellor_edit_1110.html

[FIUFanatic]

Yet another article. This time from the St. Petersburg Times. Not a ringing endorsement per se, but put up some facts out there.....



www.sptimes.com/2005/11/12/State/As_doctor_shortage_lo.shtml

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As doctor shortage looms, Florida schools plan a cure
Two state universities want to build medical schools. But others think there are better ways to bring in more doctors.
By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer
Published November 12, 2005

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Florida is a rapidly growing state with an older population and a bad reputation for high malpractice insurance rates.

All three factors add up to a future without enough doctors to treat Florida residents, many health leaders say.

But figuring out how best to treat the problem is generating considerable controversy.

Two state universities say they have the solution: start expensive new medical schools on their campuses - the University of Central Florida in Orlando and Florida International University in Miami.

"We're looking at a deficit of 4,000 or so doctors," says John Hitt, UCF's president. "We're in a state that has an inhospitable environment for doctors to practice. If we don't have the specialists we need, we're going to be in a world of hurt."

Others say there are cheaper and faster ways to increase the number of doctors practicing in Florida.

"It's a fast-growing state and we're clearly going to need more medical schools," says Dr. Robert Watson, senior associate dean for educational affairs at the University of Florida's College of Medicine. "(But) put that on a 10-year plan. ... It's clearly not the most pressing need today." How many doctors the state actually needs may not decide whether new medical schools are built. Both universities have garnered substantial political support and millions of dollars in private contributions - important factors as they prepare to make their case before the state Board of Governors this month.

Such decisions have a troubled history in Florida. The last time a Florida university asked a higher education board to create a medical school, the Board of Regents said no.

Lawmakers overruled the regents and started a new medical school at Florida State University.

Then they abolished the board.


* * *

A few weeks ago, UCF said it had raised about $23.5-million for its proposed medical school. That was then. Within a week, the tally was close to $28-million.

"It goes up daily," Hitt says. "More are in the works."

Just about everybody is giving to the cause. Orlando hospitals. Orange County government. Charitable foundations. One prominent investment group donated $12.5-million in cash and 50 acres of land worth more than $8-million.

To the Orlando area, it's not just about doctors. It's about showing that the city living in Mickey's shadow has arrived.

"A lot of people don't like to hear this, but Orlando is the largest metro area in the country without a medical school," Hitt says. "People in Orlando pay attention to that. They're really united behind this like nothing I've seen before in my 14 years as president."

FIU is out raising money as well, which is just fine with Hitt. The two schools say they aren't competing.

"Our view is that both schools are needed and necessary," says FIU spokesman Mark Riordan. "We feel the sooner, the better."

That means the political clout of Miami and Orlando has joined together to pull for the same cause.

It's an ambitious strategy. But so is the universities' goal. Running each medical school is projected to cost $18-million to $21-million a year. The last new medical school to open in the United States was FSU's, in 2001.

When it opened, it was the first new medical school since 1971.

Others say there is more at stake for the schools than increasing the number of Florida doctors.

"Things like medical schools and great football teams are things that give your university increased stature," says Dr. Stephen Klasko, dean of the University of South Florida's College of Medicine. "Part of what's driving it is the need for more doctors, and part of what's driving it is what they want to achieve for their universities."

Not that anyone blames them.

"If I were at UCF or FIU," Watson says, "I'd be doing exactly the same thing."


* * *

Florida has the fourth-highest number of doctors in the nation, according to a state committee that studied the issue last year at the request of the Board of Governors.

But after that, the numbers slip. The state falls to 16th in per capita number of doctors, 37th in per capita number of medical students, and 46th in per capita number of residents - medical school graduates who are getting further education.

Florida's doctors also are the oldest in the nation, the committee said. Of the state's doctors, 26 percent are older than 65, while only 10 percent are younger than 35.

Doctors tend to cluster in large metro areas, which means many rural and inner-city areas don't have enough. About 14 percent of Florida residents live in areas that the federal government has designated as not having enough health care workers.

The committee, the Council for Education Policy, Research and Improvement, included health leaders and officials from UCF and FIU. The group said Florida needs better medical data, but said it's clear the state will face a doctor shortage.

The group, however, didn't call for new medical schools. It said the state should add medical students after - and only after - pursuing cheaper and quicker ways to bring more doctors into the state.

Even if Florida decides to increase medical students, the group said, leaders should balance which is cheaper: expanding the state's existing medical schools or building new ones.

"The bottom line is, if you want to increase the pool of physicians in the state of Florida, you expand your number of residency programs," says Watson, who served on the committee.

At last count, the state had just over 2,800 medical residents. Each year, graduating medical students apply to their top choices for where they would like to perform their residencies. Students learn where they'll go on Match Day.

Across the nation, 23 percent of the residency slots don't get filled until later, Watson says. "Do you know how many positions in the state of Florida go unfilled, year after year? Zero. There are states that would go berserk with joy if that happened to them."

Partly as a result, just under half of Florida's medical students stay in the state. But 60 percent of the people who perform their residencies in Florida finish their training and choose to stay here. The committee's conclusion: Florida needs to expand its number of residency slots.

"Given the growth in Florida, having more resident physicians makes a lot of sense," Klasko says.

Adding residency programs has another advantage, Klasko says. The state could better target its medical needs by adding residencies in small towns or in particular specialties.

"There's no way you can tell what a medical student's going to become," Klasko says. "But you can fund certain types of residencies."

Klasko and his counterpart at FSU, medical school dean Dr. Ocie Harris, are careful not to take a position on whether the new medical schools should be built. That's a question of how much state leaders want to spend, they say. But Harris also stresses the need for more residency slots.

"We are rapidly exceeding the number of available positions for our residents," Harris says. "We're already at the point where our students have some limits on opportunities."

There are other ways to bring in more doctors as well, Watson says.

The average medical student graduates more than $100,000 in debt. Hospitals in shortage areas could pay a part of the debt for each year a young doctor practices there. Florida also could offer to help lower doctors' malpractice insurance costs.

"There are things you could do tomorrow," Watson says.

Proponents of the new schools agree that more residency slots are needed. So are innovative debt programs and expansion of the state's existing medical schools. But that's not enough, they say.

"If you look at the data, you'll see that even if we expand the existing medical school classes as much as they say they can be expanded, even if we expand the number of residencies by 75 percent and are very successful in recruiting doctors, we're still going to need two more medical schools," Hitt says.

State hospitals could set up better and larger residency programs if they had new medical schools to help with training, Hitt said.

The debate moves next to the Board of Governors, which will hear proposals from the schools at its Nov. 17 meeting. But a planned vote that day already has been delayed. Some board members said they need more time to decide such a complex issue, says board chairwoman Carolyn Roberts.

Roberts, a former member of the now-defunct Board of Regents, says board members won't be swayed by politics or intimidated by the fallout of the former board's FSU vote.

"It was a different board," she says.

"This is a constitutional board. In all my conversations with any legislators, they have been totally respectful of the board and our authority in approving programs."

[Last modified November 12, 2005, 00:55:15]

[FIUFanatic]

Another editorial on the Orlando Sentinel..Pretty nice collection of facts....

www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-ed20105nov20,0,1189887.story

EDITORIAL
Time to digest

Our position: Delaying med school vote until March will make case even stronger.


Posted November 20, 2005



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Florida's Board of Governors acted wisely Thursday by deciding to dig into proposals for medical schools at the University of Central Florida and Florida International University.

Carolyn Roberts, chairwoman of the board that oversees the state's public universities, set a final hearing on the proposals for March. In the meantime, the board's own consultant will review the UCF-FIU proposals.

Smart moves.

First, the March timetable gives board members time to digest the compelling proposals presented Thursday by UCF President John Hitt and FIU President Mitch Madique.

Medical-school supporters eagerly welcome an independent review of their exhaustive research. That's the best way to refute the off-the-top-of-the-head statistics thrown around by Board Member Zachariah P. Zachariah, a Broward County cardiologist who teaches at the University of Miami medical school, which also receives state funds.

An opponent of new medical schools, Mr. Zachariah at least has finally come around to the idea that there is a doctor shortage. How could he argue the point when faced with daunting evidence: Florida will be short at least 4,200 doctors by 2021 and the national shortage that year will be 58,000 -- a troubling statistic given that the state imports 80 percent of its physicians.

Yet Mr. Zachariah inexplicably argues that two medical schools producing 250 more graduates a year won't help. He insists that new residencies at hospitals is a better and cheaper solution.

As Mr. Hitt and Mr. Madique painstakingly explained, the best way to provide new residencies is to build the medical schools. The universities have worked out agreements with local hospitals to provide 400 new residencies. Indeed, Florida Hospital and Orlando Regional Healthcare have agreed to partner with UCF and pay for a significant part of the residencies.

It would be wonderful if more of those candidates were Floridians with the chance to attend medical school close to home, serve their residencies here and start their careers amid family and friends.

But these schools would do far more than increase the pool of doctors. They would also become powerful economic engines that would generate enough tax money to cover the state's investment in 10 years.

Both proposals would cost about the same to open -- an estimated $246 million to the state by the 10th year for UCF, and $257 million for FIU. But they would generate an estimated $770 million in economic impact by that year. A UCF medical school would create an estimated 15,000 new Central Florida jobs.

This is a rare opportunity to do more than diversify the state's economy and produce a return on taxpayers' investment. These medical schools would improve Floridians' access to health care.

Time -- and the Board of Governors' impartial research -- will prove that.

[FIUFanatic]

...and The Beacon has its own Editorial Supporting the Medical School:


www.beaconnewspaper.com/media/paper540/news/2005/11/21/Opinion/Editorial-1111860.shtml

Home > Opinion
Editorial
School of Medicine will benefit university
Published: Monday, November 21, 2005
Article Tools: Page 1 of 1


Conference: FIU sent over 40 students to support the medical school initiative. Harry Coleman/The Beacon


President Modesto A. Maidique gave his last arguments on the benefits of the medical school initiative in front of a skeptical Board of Governors on Nov. 17.

The establishment of the medical school has been a controversial issue for the last decade, but many of the points raised by the president lead us to believe it is a positive addition to the university.

However, we disagree with one of the president's main points. In his speech, Maidique, focused heavily on the predicted national shortage of doctors, which he contends the school will help alleviate. This could have been more of a scare tactic being that other solutions may exist to solve this problem, specifically investing more funds to expand hospital residency programs.

We believe the main benefits of the school will be the economic impact it will have on the South Florida community and overall reputation of the university. According to the president's proposal, it is projected to bring 11,249 jobs into the community and it will have an annual economic impact of $784 million.

Students might also be interested in knowing how the medical school initiative will affect their time at FIU even if they're not majoring in medicine.

The fact of the matter is, especially for future students, that with a medical school at FIU, diplomas will mean a lot more and add prestige.

Given by the large amount of donations ($67 million and counting) and the support of students (over 40 attended the meeting to show their support) the community is behind the effort.

Most of the nation's top universities have reached their status partly because of their success in attaining both a law school and a medical school.

FIU has already seen such promising results in the law school, so there's no reason to believe it won't repeat the performance with a medical school.

Some of the members of the faculty believe that the money being invested in the medical school should be used elsewhere such as programs already established in the university. What many should be aware of is that an unprecedented $67 million dollars have already been donated solely for the initiative.

Since this money cannot be used if the school is not approved the opportunity to make use of the money should not be ignored.

A common complaint is that the university is attempting to accomplish too much at the same time (like trying to establish a medical program while maintaining a fledgling law school). Such steps must be taken in order to sustain the progress and growth of FIU.

By sticking to these initiatives despite opposition we can assure that we are laying the foundation on which an important center of learning will be built.