Myra Hurt, Ph. D., stacked up victories of a different kind and earned the moniker,“ Mother of the College of Medicine,” with her visionary leadership that swayed powerbrokers and public opinion. She relentlessly championed the need for a new medical school to provide physicians to serve the underserved populations of Florida and provided the blueprint for its community-based medical education model to get it done.
Most importantly, she brought together the collective and disparate talents of a brilliant legal mind( FSU President Sandy D’ Alemberte), a country doctor and legislator( Rep. Durell Peaden), and a gifted consensus-builder and passionate FSU graduate( Florida Speaker of the House John Thrasher) to get it done.
A quarter-century later, the College of Medicine continues to follow the letter of the law, which specifically identified the mission for which it was created: To train health care providers – with a focus on primary care – to meet the medical needs of the elderly and underserved, especially those in Health Professional Shortage Areas, which included a majority of the rural counties in North Florida.
Medical Sciences( PIMS), which provided instruction at FSU to 30 first-year medical students as a part of the University of Florida College of Medicine. Littles helped train those PIMS students at TMH. She also learned more from the university ' s consulting group, MGT of America, which hosted community focus groups to address the need for a new medical school and how it would serve the area.
“ When they started talking about focusing on rural communities and training physicians from rural communities and potentially having those students go back to them and practice … serving the needs of those individuals who didn’ t have access to health care, it was like they were speaking my language,” Littles said.
Littles resigned her TMH post, joined the College of Medicine in 2002 and has had a front row seat as the college delivered on those promises. Since its inception, the college has produced 2,066 M. D. graduates through its first 21 classes, and an additional 314 School of Physician Assistant Practice graduates in its first six classes.
Legislation with the future in mind
The addition of medical providers to address shortages in Florida was not the only objective of the legislation. It also included language intended to address the college’ s long-range future.
Myra Hurt and Helen Livingston celebrate the college ' s provisional accreditation in 2002.
Littles’ early involvement
College of Medicine Dean Dr. Alma Littles has held that title since July 2024, but her involvement with the college pre-dates its creation and her employment by the university. Littles had left her private family medicine practice in her hometown of Quincy, Florida, to join Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare’ s( TMH) family medicine residency program, which she would later direct.
“ I didn’ t leave TMH to become employed at the medical school until August 2002,” said Littles, who remembers well the skepticism surrounding the college’ s start-up.“ I was already working with the medical school, including chairing the curriculum committee. I was the acting regional campus dean for the Tallahassee Regional Campus, and the acting chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Rural Health.
“ So those three really significant roles for the college, I was doing while I was full-time employed at TMH.”
Littles’ interest in the development of the college was piqued by her relationship with Hurt, director of the FSU-based Program in
Peaden, author of the original House bill, wanted to make sure rural areas like his hometown of Crestview would benefit longterm from the college’ s success. He included language that would increase participation by underrepresented groups through the continuation of the SSTRIDE outreach established by the PIMS program. Designed in 1994 for middle and high school students interested in science and medical programs, SSTRIDE has served more than 4,000 students, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in chosen fields.
In addition to SSTRIDE and its college component, Undergraduate or USSTRIDE, the College of Medicine developed and implemented additional outreach or pathway programs, which were also outlined – in broad terms – under the initial legislation. Those include the Bridge to Clinical Medicine, now a master’ s degree program, and the undergraduate Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences( IMS) program. IMS, which includes the cooperation of six other FSU colleges, provides a rigorous science curriculum for students who may choose from three interdisciplinary majors aligned with their goals.
“ The outreach aspect of the College of Medicine has been instrumental in helping us meet those expectations and I don’ t think it gets quite enough emphasis, because it’ s long-term,” said Helen Livingston, whose many duties included directing PIMS admissions, overseeing the transfer of PIMS graduates to the University of Florida for their final three years of medical school, and creating and overseeing the Bridge program. She was lured out of retirement to establish IMS.“ It takes decades to fulfill the promise of that program, whether it’ s the high school level [ SSTRIDE ], the Bridge program, IMS – you have to look long-term. There’ s no quick turnaround for those kinds of programs.
8 FSUMED | MED. FSU. EDU