TREASURE COAST MEDICAL REPORT
112 EDUCATION
JUNIOR
DOCS
A cooperative program between
Florida State and IRCC has brought
medical students to the Treasure Coast
with the hope that they will stay and
practice here
BY SUE-ELLEN SANDERS
olly. Tessa. Erica. Ellen. Irmanie. Kim. Leslie. Uchenna. Smart and pretty,
young and enthusiastic, they are the next generation of physicians.
The eight Florida State University medical students who moved to the
Treasure Coast this summer are already making their mark in the world. They constitute
the FSU School of Medicine’s first class of medical students at the Fort
Pierce campus of Indian River Community College.
The Fort Pierce campus is the latest of six locations, including Daytona Beach,
Pensacola, Sarasota, Orlando and Tallahassee, where FSU medical students can
receive community-based training in their third and fourth years of medical
school. Now housed in temporary quarters at IRCC’s Health Sciences Building, the
program’s temporary offices now overlook construction of the permanent home of
the FSU campus, expected to be completed next summer
This community-based education model, begun at FSU in 2001, is different from
traditional medical schools, typically affiliated with large teaching hospitals where
students spend their third and fourth years. Although used by only about a dozen
of the nation’s 125 accredited medical schools, it has a successful track record The
community-driven commitment of the students is just one reason why.
Erica Lindsay, left, and Uchenna Ikediobi
review X-rays at Martin Memorial South
with internist Dr. Daniel Edelman.
At right, the third-year students spend
Wednesday afternoons in classrooms
learning and reviewing what they've
seen during the week.
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