Post by FIUFanatic on Sept 7, 2007 8:53:09 GMT -5
This came out in today's Miami Herald. He espouses many other, already tangible reasons, for the legislators and governor to take into consideration in order to keep full funding of our Medical School. We ALL need to call, write, e-mail, whatever we need to do in order to keep this well deserved College of Medicine running.....
www.miamiherald.com/851/story/228516.html
www.miamiherald.com/851/story/228516.html
FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Med students will 'adopt' underserved families
Posted on Fri, Sep. 07, 2007Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY PEDRO JOSE 'JOE' GREER
greerp@fiu.edu
We South Floridians have an unbelievable and unique opportunity to do what has never been done in our community or in our country. We will use the resources committed to the FIU College of Medicine to produce an immediate and lasting impact on the health of our poorest residents. This is one of the ways that FIU's College of Medicine offers a new opportunity to make a difference. Let me explain first why it is needed and then what it will do.
A recent report from the Commonwealth Fund Commission on High Performance Health Systems, Aiming Higher, showed that Florida ranks dead last in the number of insured adults and 49th in insured children in the country. In 2002, when the economic situation was better than it is now, Miami-Dade County had more than one quarter (26 percent) of our population uninsured when the nationwide figure was below one fifth (18 percent).
What does this mean for our economy? A significant and growing percentage of our population is uninsured and employed: 70 percent are employed full time, 11 percent part time. When these South Floridians get sick they tend to go to an emergency room. Employers lose; employees lose; their families lose and taxpayers lose because they foot the bill at hospitals such as Jackson Memorial. The impact is far beyond individual suffering; in reality, we all lose.
Enter FIU's College of Medicine, led by Dr. John Rock, the former chancellor of the Louisiana State University's Health Sciences Center.
I was invited to join a highly qualified team that is designing a program in which our students will do their training in medically underserved areas of South Florida.
After their first year of learning the ethical foundations of medicine, the foundations of public health, nursing and case work, these students from the respective colleges will form teams that will be responsible for neighborhoods and their families for the rest of their medical-school careers. Working in these interdisciplinary models will allow for not only the understanding of the causes of illness, but their resolution. Students will learn about preventing disease, educating our patients and their families and coming up with the solutions they will implement. We in Miami will produce not only the number of physicians we need, but educated in a way that will care for our entire community.
Along with our partners at Jackson Memorial and the University of Miami, we want to reach underserved patients before their care becomes too expensive or comes too late. By making primary and preventive care accessible, we will be creating a cost-effective way of teaching our students and caring for our community at the same time.
This is extremely important at a time when even those who have insurance often must wait weeks to see a doctor simply because there aren't enough of us doctors to go around. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a major physician shortage nationwide by 2015.
Here in South Florida it looks even grimmer: The average age of a South Florida doctor is 53 and 11 percent are older than 70. As our doctors retire, our patients are also getting older and requiring more care. So even the insured population should be concerned.
This looming doctor shortage is one of the major reasons why the Florida Board of Governors approved the FIU College of Medicine and a similar project at the University of Central Florida. The other major reason is economic development.
In addition to the economic benefit of a healthier workforce, the FIU project will have an economic impact of more than $1 billion and generate $78 million in tax revenues for state coffers every year. The medical school will create than 8,000 jobs in South Florida alone. This is a great deal, if you consider the $27 million a year the FIU College of Medicine will need and is requesting from the state to run at full capacity.
So, as our legislators get ready to look at the state's checkbook, I urge them to think long term. I urge them to look around our community and look at the faces of our working poor and the hundreds of deserving future doctors among our children. This is not about spending, this is about investing.
It's also the ethical thing to do. Let us be the best we can.
Pedro Jose ''Joe'' Greer is assistant dean at FIU's College of Medicine
Med students will 'adopt' underserved families
Posted on Fri, Sep. 07, 2007Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY PEDRO JOSE 'JOE' GREER
greerp@fiu.edu
We South Floridians have an unbelievable and unique opportunity to do what has never been done in our community or in our country. We will use the resources committed to the FIU College of Medicine to produce an immediate and lasting impact on the health of our poorest residents. This is one of the ways that FIU's College of Medicine offers a new opportunity to make a difference. Let me explain first why it is needed and then what it will do.
A recent report from the Commonwealth Fund Commission on High Performance Health Systems, Aiming Higher, showed that Florida ranks dead last in the number of insured adults and 49th in insured children in the country. In 2002, when the economic situation was better than it is now, Miami-Dade County had more than one quarter (26 percent) of our population uninsured when the nationwide figure was below one fifth (18 percent).
What does this mean for our economy? A significant and growing percentage of our population is uninsured and employed: 70 percent are employed full time, 11 percent part time. When these South Floridians get sick they tend to go to an emergency room. Employers lose; employees lose; their families lose and taxpayers lose because they foot the bill at hospitals such as Jackson Memorial. The impact is far beyond individual suffering; in reality, we all lose.
Enter FIU's College of Medicine, led by Dr. John Rock, the former chancellor of the Louisiana State University's Health Sciences Center.
I was invited to join a highly qualified team that is designing a program in which our students will do their training in medically underserved areas of South Florida.
After their first year of learning the ethical foundations of medicine, the foundations of public health, nursing and case work, these students from the respective colleges will form teams that will be responsible for neighborhoods and their families for the rest of their medical-school careers. Working in these interdisciplinary models will allow for not only the understanding of the causes of illness, but their resolution. Students will learn about preventing disease, educating our patients and their families and coming up with the solutions they will implement. We in Miami will produce not only the number of physicians we need, but educated in a way that will care for our entire community.
Along with our partners at Jackson Memorial and the University of Miami, we want to reach underserved patients before their care becomes too expensive or comes too late. By making primary and preventive care accessible, we will be creating a cost-effective way of teaching our students and caring for our community at the same time.
This is extremely important at a time when even those who have insurance often must wait weeks to see a doctor simply because there aren't enough of us doctors to go around. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a major physician shortage nationwide by 2015.
Here in South Florida it looks even grimmer: The average age of a South Florida doctor is 53 and 11 percent are older than 70. As our doctors retire, our patients are also getting older and requiring more care. So even the insured population should be concerned.
This looming doctor shortage is one of the major reasons why the Florida Board of Governors approved the FIU College of Medicine and a similar project at the University of Central Florida. The other major reason is economic development.
In addition to the economic benefit of a healthier workforce, the FIU project will have an economic impact of more than $1 billion and generate $78 million in tax revenues for state coffers every year. The medical school will create than 8,000 jobs in South Florida alone. This is a great deal, if you consider the $27 million a year the FIU College of Medicine will need and is requesting from the state to run at full capacity.
So, as our legislators get ready to look at the state's checkbook, I urge them to think long term. I urge them to look around our community and look at the faces of our working poor and the hundreds of deserving future doctors among our children. This is not about spending, this is about investing.
It's also the ethical thing to do. Let us be the best we can.
Pedro Jose ''Joe'' Greer is assistant dean at FIU's College of Medicine
