Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Skip navigation

A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degrees

Add topic

Post

I'm sure this will be in the news tomorrow, especially since the FAU beat writers read this messageboard… until then, you read it here first.

Tomorrow's BOT meeting has an agenda item entitled "Authorize Termination of Interim Medical Education Affiliation Agreement with the University of Miami."

The 91-page document states that after BRCH dropped the ball, the tri-partite agreement among UM/FAU/BRCH was re-evaluated and a temporary agreement was reached with UM. Now that the temporary agreement is about to expire, FAU Administration looked at 3 options:

  1. extending the program with UM under a long-term agreement
  2. affiliate with a different medical school
  3. obtain approval from the Board of Governors/State Legislature to issue the M.D. degree independently

FAU's admin wants to go with the 3rd option, mostly because they've worked out a deal in which they can offer a combined M.D./Ph.D. with Scripps if they get approval from the State Legislature. Furthermore, as it talks about in the end, the current FAU-UM agreement is not working as planned and UM is reaping all the benefits, both financially and nationally.

This is fantastic news for FAU's academic reputation. After all, we didn't get much respect from our peers since we lacked a "true" medical school and instead we were basically just renting out facility space to UM. Furthermore, the UM medical students were paying an arm and a leg even though the program was paid for with public tax dollars. Since we are a public institution, the FAU medical students would really be saving about half of what they'd be paying at UM; the average tuition for a public medical school in Florida is $20k/year whereas at Miami it's over $30k.

FAU will have to hire ~30 faculty, which you may say they don't have money for but right now they're paying $3 million/year to UM for faculty salaries. If we cut that out it's $100k/faculty that we can pay out ourselves. We may not even have to recruit too hard… some of those professors we'll hire already work here anyway.

However, this move does temporarily put us in a weird space because it means we have to wind down and transition out the med students who are there and, with the recent approval of both FIU and UCF's medical schools, there's a chance we may not get the approval to issue the M.D. degree independently.

Hopefully the cost savings for Florida students and the M.D./Ph.D. incentive will be enough for FAU to get the nod! If our BoT approves this move, which they will, FAU will submit a request to the Florida BOG this month and hopefully get an approval by mid-March.

The program would then admit its first class in 2011. Each class would have 10-15% of FAU MD/PhD students that would spend 3 years at FAU and then transfer to Scripps to finish the Ph.D. The Scripps program we'd affiliate with, the Scripps Kellogg School of Science and Technology, currently has graduate biology/chemistry programs that rank in the nation's Top 5, according to the document.

Let's hope this works out!
Back to the top

Post

Re: A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degrees

Very bold…pros and cons…

Here's an article that just came through the ticker ;D

FAU could cancel UM affiliation, start medical school

Back to the top

Post

Re: A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degrees

Great news.  Anything stadium related on the agenda tomorrow?
Back to the top

Post

Re: A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degrees

A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degrees

fauowls44 said

Great news.  Anything stadium related on the agenda tomorrow?

Nothing other than the financing plan for the Innovation Village housing… cost vs revenue projections, that kind of stuff.
Back to the top

Post

Re: A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degrees

I am all for this!!!
What other university can offer what FAU can with Scripps and eventually Max Planc?
This is good news.

FAU - THE REAL SLEEPING GIANT
Back to the top

Post

Re: A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degrees

illinoisowl said

I am all for this!!!
What other university can offer what FAU can with Scripps and eventually Max Planc?
This is good news.

It is. From the Bizjournal article, FAU really only needs the state to say yes and nothing else. They have the facility, the money and the know-how to operate a LCME-accredited medical school.
Back to the top

Post

Re: A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degre

Front page of the Sun-Sentinel local section

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/highered/fl-fau-md-20100119,0,5708545.story

FAU to offer its own medical degree
University will work with Scripps instead of UM


By Scott Travis, Sun Sentinel
2:56 a.m. EST, January 20, 2010

Florida Atlantic University plans to stop offering University of Miami medical degrees on its Boca Raton campus and instead start its own program with the help of The Scripps Research Institute.

Students in FAU's new four-year medical program could also apply to get a Ph.D. from Scripps' Kellogg School of Science and work on them jointly. Scripps' Florida site is on FAU's Jupiter campus.

"With Scripps' name, and the number of students that are applying for the Scripps Ph.D., having the medical option along with that makes the program an almost instant success," said John Pritchett, interim president of FAU.

U.S. News & World Report ranks Scripps as the country's seventh-best graduate school for science.

Students may find the cost appealing as well. Tuition would be $21,752 a year plus fees, down from the $30,000 a year plus fees that UM, a private college, charged students on the FAU campus.

FAU says it can offer this program with no new money from the state, using tuition and $12 million in state funding it already receives for its UM partnership.

FAU's board of trustees is expected to approve the proposal Wednesday. The university would need to get approval from the Board of Governors, which runs the State University System. The first students would start in fall 2011.

"It will be very important for the university to be able to show the Board of Governors that there won't be any additional state funding needed to change the way they operate, especially given the tough economic times," said Norman Tripp of Fort Lauderdale, a member of the state board.

FAU's affiliation with UM's Miller School of Medicine started in 2004. Initially, UM students could take two years of classes on the FAU campus and their final two in Miami. That eventually changed to allow UM students to stay at FAU all four years. The agreement expires this year, so FAU had to decide whether to renew, work with another university or go off on its own, Pritchett said.

Boca Raton Community Hospital joined the partnership in 2006, when it announced plans to build a $650 million teaching hospital, where medical students could do their residency work. But those plans folded when the hospital ran out of money and ended its plans to relocate.

No one from UM was available to comment Tuesday, a spokeswoman said. President Donna Shalala issued a joint statement with Pritchett indicating the separation is amicable. The statement said the joint partnership "has worked well for FAU and could become a national standard."

The UM and FAU program now serves 127 students and had planned to grow to 256. The FAU program would serve 246 students by 2014, according to the proposal. Students currently enrolled in the UM program will be able to continue and graduate with a UM degree. Pritchett expects the final class of UM students to enroll at FAU this fall.

Scott Travis can be reached at [email protected] or 561-243-6637.
Copyright © 2010, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Florida Atlantic University Owls
2007 Sun Belt Football Champions 2007 New Orleans Bowl Champions 2008 Motor City Bowl Champions 2011 Sun Belt Basketball Champions No Bowls without Owls
Back to the top

Post

Re: A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degrees

Good News!

Something a AQ school would look for in association with athletics programs would be a medical school and with the affiliation of Scripps and Max Plank would certainly enhance our standing.

GO OWLS!

I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick @$$ and I'm out of bubble gum.

Back to the top

Post

Re: A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degrees

This is excellent news. It's really impressive that this won't have any additional impact on the budget.
Back to the top

Post

Re: A bold move: FAU to take over the FAU@UM medical school and issue M.D. degre

Think FAU would do this to get their name out there…..
Medical school will be free for 40 Central Florida students - Jul. 31, 2009

Its a great idea if you have the donors which UCF has.
Back to the top
Control functions: