PRIMARY CARE IN THEIR OWN BACKYARD
FSU PrimaryHealth is a new ‘medical home’ in southwest
Tallahassee – and an unprecedented classroom
P
BY RON HARTUNG
icture where you PrimaryHealth community advisory board. “We interdisciplinary, evidence-based care that they
get your health hope that what we have started developing just teach.”
care. Probably the grows.”
nurses’ station
Although only a year elapsed between
Now, five days a week, three or four at a time,
his faculty members are indeed seeing patients.
is over here, the groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting, Dean John Most of those patients were “underserved” –
doctor’s private P. Fogarty says this project was years in the until now.
office is over there, making.
“We’ve seen asthmatics, diabetics, depression
the PA is down “It’s an opportunity to teach our students cases and people who have multiple medical
the hall and the multidisciplinary care in actual clinical settings issues,” said Sherri Swilley, interim practice
behavior specialist is across town, just like the with other health professionals and develop manager. “They’re happy with the care they’re
social worker. innovative approaches to community health,” getting.”
That scenario doesn’t match the mental
Fogarty told the College of Medicine family in
‘ALL IN ONE PLACE’
picture that College of Medicine faculty 2017, before the site in southwest Tallahassee members create when they tell students that had been chosen. “We want our faculty to stay medicine is a team sport. up-to-date and help us offset some of their cutting, a who’s who of civic and school officials
But now, just three miles from the College of
At both the groundbreaking and the ribbon-
salaries through clinical revenues, much as applauded the new center. Without good
Medicine’s central campus, there’s a place where traditional medical schools do. We want to let health, they said, kids can’t learn and adults
FSU M.D. and PA students can see their own our clinical faculty practice the person-centered, can’t prosper. In June, Sabal Palm became a
faculty members practice what they teach. A
place where patient-centered care is the norm,
where many patients live only minutes away,
where few had a primary-care doctor until now,
and where the members of the medical team
literally work side by side in a wide-open space
dubbed The Island.
It’s called FSU PrimaryHealth. It opened
its doors May 13 at Roberts Avenue and
Eisenhower Street, catty-corner from Sabal
Palm Elementary School, in a part of town that
welcomed it with open arms.
“We’re excited for our budding relationship
with the College of Medicine,” said Monet
Moore, a resident of nearby Providence
Joedrecka Brown Speights, M.D.,
right, with second-year student
Shelby De Cardenas, center, and
medical assistant Taylor Brown
neighborhood and a member of the FSU
Tents were up for FSU PrimaryHealth’s ribbon-cutting and open house in May.
13