March/April 2002
First medical class lined up to train in hospitals, HMO, clinics
Next year, when Florida State's first 30 medical students move on to clinical training, they'll split up and go three ways - to work with doctors in community clinics and hospitals in Tallahassee, Pensacola and Orlando.
Many of the medical training sites are in place for third- and fourth-year students.
In Tallahassee, for example, the Leon County Health Department, Tallahassee Com-munity Hospital and an HMO, Capital Health Plan, have signed agreements for medical students to train with their physicians.
In Pensacola, agreements have been made with
Baptist Health Care, Sacred Heart and West Florida hospitals.
In the Orlando area, Florida Hospital and Orlando Regional Health
System will have training sites.
College officials are negotiating affiliations with other health-care providers, and training sites for future classes will include Jacksonville, Sarasota, Fort Myers and smaller rural communities.
Dr. Joseph Scherger, dean of the FSU College of Medicine, said each affiliate has advantages.
"With the way TCH plans to use medical information technology in its new facility, the hospital will be a good model of 21st century medicine for our students," Scherger said, adding that students will be able to follow a patient or group of patients at Capital Health Plan, which has a patient population of 108,000.
Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, an associate medical director at CHP, said the organization is an ideal teaching site, and the relationship with the medical college will also benefit CHP patients.
Craig Miller, senior vice president of medical affairs for Baptist Health Care, said doctors and hospital administrators in Pensacola are pleased with the chance to help train the doctors who are likely to stay in town to practice.
"The new model that I think is best to serve the community is a university without walls," he said. "It uses local hospitals and interacts with the community of physicians."
Besides working in hospitals with physicians, the students will train in other health-care settings in the communities where they spend their last two years of medical school.
Third-year students will spend 30 percent of their time in hospitals and 70 percent in physicians' practices, while fourth-year students will spend 60 percent of their time in a hospital and 40 percent in physicians' practices.
Students will complete four- to eight-week rotations in specialties such as internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, geriatrics and obstetrics and gynecology.
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