For a Legislative discussion of some of the purposes and funding of the all state Colleges of Medicine, see the attached link.
Lots of aspects to note, but three of the most significant include:
1. The expectation that all state med schools serves as economic engines for the regions they occupy.
2. The expectation that all state med schools engage in research.
3. FSU Med has a special Legislative mandate and additional funding to accommodate this mandate and structure, at least until the middle of this decade. The reasons are explained in the document.
Interesting to see this data on state financing of medical schools. As I've mentioned before, medical school leaders and administrators at FSU would be stupid to think that the state legislature is going to continue to fund FSU's medical school at $30k per student more than any other medical school in the state (including upstarts such as UCF), simply because FSU has a special mission. There is no political support for this, and there is incredible political support to equalize per student revenue for the medical schools in the state over the next decade. As revenue equalizes over time, FSU will be forced to find alternative revenue. FSU needs to plan for this now, as otherwise it will have its back against the wall and will need to tax other functions at the university to keep its medical school afloat. The only ways FSU can ward this off are by either by increasing med school tuition substantially or substantially expanding its research mission and becoming more research intensive in its faculty hires, hospital partnerships and activities, as a way of bringing in new revenue. Or maybe FSU's lobbyists can convince the legislature to reallocate the decline in per student funding at FSU (which is in the millions in recurring) as an investment in an FSU run research hospital somewhere in North Florida?
Posted on 1/3 3:41 PM | IP: Logged
My guess is FSU Med - TMH becomes a substantial research and economic engine. TMH has recently been approved as a Level II Trauma Center, which will certainly attract more physicians to the area. Right now FSU Med is living the dream of generous state support.
Posted on 1/3 8:04 PM | IP: Logged
Noooooo I want our own in Tallahassee. I have a nice spot for it picked out, right along Tennessee next to Degraff. There's also a lot of space out by the golf course.
Posted on 1/3 10:14 PM | IP: Logged
FSU has never made any effort to expand its very limited mission statement. Even just on paper. Teaching hospital in Tallahassee? I've never heard of one serious discussion of such a thing...going way back to the late 90's when FSU's original ambitious proposal was scaled way back. Try a google search of "FSU" and "teaching hospital". You won't find anything (aside from not having one). When there's another teaching hospital established in Florida...my dollar says it will be in Orlando...and belong to UCF.
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