Dade Health Dept. to Team up with FIU

[FIUFanatic]

Pretty interesting move by Miami Dade County and FIU officials. Dade County announced teaming up with FIU and moving its Health Department Heaquarters to FIU's University Park Campus. It will build a new building, next to the College of Medicine
building(s), which will house administrators, labs, clinic, FIU students and faculty....

We are moving in the right direction. Keep sending e-mails supporting FIU College of Medicine.....the train has left the station.....

www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_dade/story/251506.html#recent_comm

FIU
Posted on Wed, Sep. 26, 2007Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY ANDREA ROBINSON
[e-mail]
In a deal that would bring more medical facilities into Miami-Dade's western communities, Miami Dade Health Department announced Wednesday that it would relocate its main headquarters to Florida International University's Tamiami campus.

A new building will be constructed to house administrative offices, new clinic and labs. FIU faculty and students would also be housed in the building.

Officials estimate the construction of the 94,000-square-foot facility, will be completed in 2010 and will be adjacent to the new College of Medicine. Classes at the medical school are slated to begin in 2009.

[kevinkagy]

Great news for us, really great news! Another incentive to get our med school running on time and to increase its prestigious.

[FIUFanatic]

Another, more in-depth, article in The Miami Herald, about the partnership and synergies acquired from this collaboration:

www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/257194.html

Dade health offices moving to FIU campus
Posted on Mon, Oct. 01, 2007Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY ANDREA ROBINSON
[e-mail]
Florida health officials say a deal with Florida International University to relocate Miami-Dade Health Department offices to the west Miami-Dade campus will create one of few academic health departments in the country, while increasing the number of public health practitioners in South Florida.

FIU officials estimate the construction of the 94,000-square-foot facility will be completed in 2010. The health department would be the second in Florida that is directly attached to a university to provide students with hands-on practical experience. The other partnership is housed at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

''If we create an environment where we train future public health workers, doctors, nurses, hopefully some will stay in our community,'' Lillian Rivera, deputy health officer with the Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee, said Monday. ``You're making an investment in education.''

NEW LOCATION

Last week, the Miami-Dade Health Department announced it would relocate its main headquarters from Doral to FIU's University Park/Tamiami campus to create an academic health department, one of about five in the country.

In addition, a by-appointment-only medical clinic also will open, bringing more medical options to Miami-Dade's burgeoning western communities.

From an educational standpoint, the pairing offers a facility where FIU students in medicine, nursing, public health and allied health disciplines would receive hands-on training from their instructors.

FIU Provost Ronald Berkman hailed the partnership, which covers everything from internships to lab work, and use of the extensive databases maintained by the health department.

A new health department building would be constructed near the northeast edge of the University Park campus, adjacent to the new College of Medicine, where classes are slated to begin in 2009.

IDEA TOUTED

Rivera, a former administrator with the Miami-Dade Health Department, spent three years promoting the collaboration.

She drew on her experiences in nursing school in Puerto Rico, where students worked alongside physicians and nurses.

''Everyone was together. I thought it was a wonderful way to educate people in public health and health sciences. We all trained together,'' Rivera said.

More importantly, the facility will be part of an academic health sciences center, drawing in the FIU School of Public Health, the College of Nursing and Health Sciences and the College of Medicine.

The health department will provide internships for masters and doctoral students in public health. Medical students would work at the clinic.

Berkman said ties to a large health department will boost FIU's chances of getting sponsored research, as well as give students and researchers a mechanism to implement and test research ideas created at the university.

''We can take [ideas] out of the mind and into the real world,'' Berkman said.

[kevinkagy]

Truly great news for FIU!