first class— unbeknownst to her.
Alexander had met with Livingston to find out how to better her application for the next PIMS admission cycle. She was already fulfilling the service element, working as a medical assistant in Tallahassee, volunteering at a local clinic one night a week and going on mission trips.
“ She [ Livingston ] said,‘ Keep doing those things. It really is just your grades, and we’ ll work on getting those things bolstered. You’ re going to take these classes with these medical students … If you can show you can succeed in these classes, along with everything else that you’ re doing, then reapply and that will really help.’
“ I was basically doing the Bridge program without a master’ s degree.”
The Bridge to Clinical Medicine program was a post-baccalaureate endeavor until 2009.
Alexander followed Livingston’ s advice and interviewed with the committee in January of 2001.
“[ Livingston ] called me the following Tuesday and said,‘ It’ s my pleasure to let you know that you’ ve been accepted into next class of students.’ I did not remember a conversation about a new medical school. In my mind it was,‘ Great, now I’ m part of this medical school class,’ thinking still it was PIMS.
“ I don’ t know if it was my own naivete. I didn’ t quite understand what was happening, and it didn’ t matter to me. All that mattered was I was getting into the program I wanted
to be in and was going to be able to realize my dream of becoming a physician.”
It was a dream the inaugural students would realize together, through the rigors of medical school and the ongoing battle with LCME for accreditation, leading to some very uneasy times among the class. But there was bond among the 30 that would not be broken.
Certainly it helped that Hurt and Livingston employed the PIMS support model:“ If one is successful, they’ re all successful.”
“ Myra’ s big thing was,‘ All of your focus has to be on your studies and preparing to be the best doctors that you can be,’” Alexander said, adding that the college’ s administration, with the help of FSU President Sandy D’ Alemberte, would handle the LCME battle.“ For me, I had the sense that things were being handled. When you have people like Dr. Livingston, Director of Community Clinical Relations Mollie Hill and Dr. Hurt … I felt very sure that we were in good hands and were going to get the job done. And they did.”
They also had confidence in classmates Julie Gladden Barré and Javier Miller, steadying voices throughout the four years, who presented to the LCME before full accreditation was granted in February of 2005, just three months before graduation.
“ It’ s a very interesting thing to have 30 students that care about each other as much as we do and did,” said Alexander.
Continued on next page