“ We had to talk to a half-dozen other colleges around the campus and get them excited about what we were doing,” Livingston said.“ We tried to do it in such a way where it was value-added for them.‘ This is going to help you because these things will happen.’”
By convincing deans and department chairs it would be a win-win and gaining approval from both the FSU Board of Trustees and the State University System of Florida Board of Governors, IMS welcomed its first students in the 2016 Fall semester, just 20 months after McRorie set the ball in motion.
And it’ s been rolling along ever since
The numbers speak volumes
Of the 688 IMS graduates through the program’ s first nine years, 54 have matriculated into the College of Medicine’ s M. D. program and 30 into its School of Physician Assistant Practice.
Ryan Peacock( M. D.,’ 25), one of nine IMS graduates to graduate from FSU’ s medical school this year— a single-class high to date— was a student in the first IMS class.
“ The best thing that IMS afforded us was our freedom to cut out the fluff that a biology degree or exercise science would have,” said Peacock, who took two gap years before beginning the M. D. program.“ It gave us the opportunity to just focus on what we needed, build up some networking, because they pretty much were pushing everything we wanted. It was a good guidance, especially to have a core faculty that knew that we want to get into medicine.”
Through 2025, 16 IMS alumni have graduated from the college’ s M. D. program and 10 others from the PA program. Those numbers will grow significantly in the coming years based on the number of current M. D. and PA students who are IMS graduates and the program’ s trending growth. medical school, PA school or some sort of health profession school, we ' d be elated.”
Turning out physicians and PAs practicing patient-centered medicine is essential to answering the ever-growing shortage of health care providers and central to the College of Medicine’ s mission. So, too, is producing medical researchers, health care managers and policymakers, and those working in informatics, navigation and interpretation.
“ That really is the untapped potential that [ IMS ] brings to the equation,” Speights said.“ The number of pre-health students we have who want to go into medicine and PA stays pretty constant. Where we make a much bigger difference— and really the whole reason Helen and Myra did this – is to help students understand that only a small percentage of those folks are going to be successful getting into( medical or PA) school, but also helping them realize that there may actually be other things in health care that they want to do, that they hadn ' t even thought about.”
There’ s no shortage of IMS students exploring those options. There are currently 650 enrolled in the program, which includes 187 in the freshman class. In addition, IMS accepts transfers, primarily those who haven’ t completed more than four semesters, due to the required experiential learning hours and seminar classes.
Experiential learning hours, which are tracked and monitored by community coordinator Heather Stitely through the EL database, allow the students to explore a variety of interests as they fulfill the degree-required 64 hours a year and 256 hours before graduation. Stitely succeeded Lilly Lewis, Hurt’ s daughter, who was one of three original IMS
“ Overall, we ' re doing really well and we ' re really happy with the progress that we’ ve had,” said Anthony Speights, M. D., senior associate dean for Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences.“ If we could get every one of those students into a
Ryan Peacock is flanked by his parents at the Military Pinning ahead of the 2025 M. D. Commencement Ceremony. Peacock was among the first students to enroll in the IMS program in the Fall of 2016.
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