decide whether to be a medical professional, medical IT person, social worker
or administrator. Multiple classes of graduates seem pleased with the experience.
Our research program has grown dramatically in the past 10 years with an
increase of over 60 percent in total funding. We’re now over $120 million in total
funding for our investigators. We’ve focused on behavioral health, neuroscience
and public health, among other areas. We’ve also partnered with the University
of Florida on its Clinical Translational Science Award. And we purchased an
MRI with the support of the vice president of research and the provost and continue
to build strength in neuroscience and behavioral health.
As of January 2020 we have now graduated 15 M.D. classes with 1,367alumni.
In all, 80 percent of them have matched in family medicine, internal medicine,
pediatrics, general surgery, OB/GYN, emergency medicine or psychiatry – compared
with the 60 percent you’d find at a traditional medical school. All of those
programs are considered to be shortage specialties in Florida.
So when people ask me how we’re doing, I say we’re meeting our mission.
We’re doing what we set out to do: producing the health-care providers that
Florida needs the most. We’re absolutely committed to fulfilling that mission far
into the future. •
128 | Breaking the Mold