space in Gainesville, but there was space at Florida State, along with resources
and faculty to teach the first-year medical curriculum.
So they applied for and got what is called capitation money to expand their
medical school class. “Capitation” means head count – that is, the money per
head to expand their class. I never found out how much money per head was
won in this grant, but for some years that money was awarded to Florida State’s
College of Arts and Sciences to fund the teaching and running of the program.
After the grant ran out, the program was supposed to be funded out of the Arts
and Sciences budget – but the dean of Arts and Sciences was not fond of pulling
money out of his slim budget for PIMS. In fact, he paid no attention to the program
whatsoever. As one would imagine, it suffered as a result.
This expansion program of the UF College of Medicine at Florida State
existed for 30 years. The last 10 years, I was director. Now, the thing you have to
understand is that the quality control over how well things were going at Florida
State existed solely in Gainesville. The only way to assess the teaching was to
look at the PIMS students’ performance on Step 1 of the licensure exam – which
they took a year after they had transferred from Florida State to the University of
Florida. At which point, it was a little late to do anything.
For me, one of the main questions was: Why was this program placed in Arts
and Sciences anyway? Or, to put it another way: Why had FSU kept the sciences
jumbled up with the arts? Why couldn’t PIMS be part of a College of Human
Sciences? What brought this to my mind so clearly was that in 2001, when the
College of Medicine was funded at Florida State, there was about $2 billion in
play – the big dollars for our building and for our curriculum. Well, Arts and
Sciences Dean Don Foss made a big grab for the building money. He wanted to
use it to fund the biology building and more. I thought: Why in the world would
he think that was appropriate? Then, of course, I realized: He was just following
the pattern established by the history of the PIMS program.
PIMS was housed in the biological science department. All the courses were
taught in biology. Why did the University of Florida think that was the appropriate
place for teaching the curriculum? Being a curious individual, I sought out
the nearest reptile (as I fondly call my colleagues from UF, whose mascot is an
alligator). Bob Watson, a professor in our College of Medicine, spent his entire
career at the University of Florida College of Medicine steeped in reptile history
and culture. I asked him: “Why biological science, Bob?” And he said to me:
“Myra, it was the hope that any Florida State hopes for a medical school at
that time would be satisfied by PIMS.”
The provost appointed me at a low point in the program’s history, when a lot
of students failed Step 1 because there was no feedback to the faculty on how
PIMS students were performing on those Step 1 tests. The provost charged me
with improving that performance.
Let me pause here to make myself clear: PIMS has a long and distinguished
record of producing doctors who are well-trained in the clinical professions,
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