Kim Ruscher on graduation day in 2005.
(Photo by Ray Stanyard)
TAKING A CHANCE ON FLORIDA STATE
A condensed and slightly reworked version of an article written by Nancy Kinnally
in the first issue of FSU MED (Winter 2005). Reprinted from the Spring 2010
issue of FSU MED.
The paths of 30 aspiring doctors came together for the first time on May 7,
2001, in borrowed space on the first floor of the Florida State University School
of Nursing. The youngest was 19; the oldest, 32. Each had a story.
“We were 30 strangers – the first class of a new medical school – full of uncertainty,”
remembered Kimberly Ruscher, who was 24 at the time.
Full of uncertainty because, as a new school, the FSU College of Medicine
was not yet accredited. Uncertainty because there was, as yet, no medical school
building at FSU. Not even on paper. Uncertainty because it had been a generation
since a new M.D. program had been established anywhere in the United
States.
Florida State’s medical school initially operated out of a few thousand square
feet that had been carved out of the nursing school’s Duxbury Hall for the
Program in Medical Sciences. Established in 1970, PIMS annually provided the
first year of medical education for 30 students, who then completed medical
school at the University of Florida.
“We assembled daily for gross anatomy in an old [renovated] bowling alley on
the other side of campus,” Ruscher said. “Our dean’s office was in a trailer. The
nursing and biology departments lent us office and classroom space.”
In spite of Spartan accommodations and a seemingly doubtful future, some
of the top faculty from medical schools around the nation signed on at FSU,
68 | Breaking the Mold