University of Florida College of Medicine and worked with the Area Health
Education Center program. Thanks to Mollie and Ocie, today we have six
regional campuses and three clinical learning sites. For starters, though, in 2003
we had just three regional campuses – in Tallahassee, Pensacola and Orlando.
That’s where Mollie and Ocie got to create the regional campus template that
we would later use in Sarasota, Daytona Beach and Fort Pierce, as well as in
Immokalee, Marianna and Thomasville, Georgia.
Choosing the cities was just the first step. Then we had to persuade the hospitals,
clinics and other ambulatory care providers to welcome our students and
allow their doctors to be our mentors.
“Looking back, one of the things that I think made a huge difference is agreeing
that we weren’t going to be exclusive to any one hospital system,” Mollie said.
“Because we had already experienced what can happen if a hospital CEO doesn’t
like what you’re doing and they just kick you out. That allowed us to cherry-pick
at each hospital system in these regions what would be the best rotations there
and then to convince them that it was their idea.”
As we recruited faculty members, Ocie recalled, we wanted the ones who
were recommended to us. Then we went to them. We didn’t send out a blanket
announcement inviting anyone who might be interested to apply. We went to
people individually. The campus dean, of course, spearheaded that. Obviously,
getting the right campus deans was important. The key was to find a well-respected
doctor from that community. In a couple of cases, we hired someone
from outside the community – and, to be honest, that didn’t work. But
eventually we built a strong lineup of deans who were crucial in establishing
each campus and clinical training site: Luckey Dunn, Daytona Beach; Randy
Bertolette, Fort Pierce; Elena Reyes, Immokalee; Steven Spence, Marianna;
Michael Muszynski, Orlando; Paul McLeod, Pensacola; Bruce Berg, Sarasota;
Mel Hartsfield, Tallahassee; and Rudy Hehn, Thomasville.
The goal for choosing a clerkship director, too, was to find a respected physician
from that community. “That didn’t always mean the bigshot surgeon when,
in fact, that wasn’t really the best person,” Mollie said. “It took a lot of effort. But
that is one of the strengths of the entire program – how the clerkships are managed
locally by the clerkship director.”
For example, the Orlando Regional Campus’ family medicine clerkship
director would oversee all the family medicine teachers for that campus. And the
various clerkship directors in Orlando would coordinate with not only the clerkship
directors at the other regional campuses but also the appropriate education
director at the central campus.
“We did a lot of things in developing this model that helped solidify the clerkship
faculty,” Ocie said. “Not only was there a lot of interaction between people on the
campus and at the medical school, but at each of the regional campuses we brought
all the faculty together at least once a year for workshops. They got to see and talk to
their counterparts at the other regional campuses.”
30 | Breaking the Mold