So, besides P/F, what other changes do you think we'll see?
They will finish the mezanine level by January, which will have offices, student club/activity area, some private study areas, a "wellness center" (which will probably just have an open area and some treadmills or something).
The dean really wants to knock down a wall and extend the space where the cafe is, but he will only do it if Aramark (the food people on campus) promise to have better hours, more food selection and help throw down for some nicer furniture. He also said he wants a cut of the profits generated from that facility. I'd put this project on the lower end of the probability scale, but there is a push for it.
There will be a massive 100+ inch flat screen t.v. mounted in the atrium with a PA system with various pictures/movies playing involving the college of medicine, as well as the capability to live broadcast anything happening in the auditorium. There will be another flat screen mounted near the security desk with constant updates of what events are happening at the COM for that day as well
There is a push to get away from getting the vast majority of our money from the state legislator. They are also looking at ways to create better scholarship funds and grants, but there is a bit of worry about having to increase tuition a little bit because of all of the current cuts.
I predict a fairly significant curriculum change coming within the next few years. It may not be until you are third years, but they really want a more integrative curriculum, as well as to deload the 2nd year a little. As it currently stands, MS1 is great since it is nice and light, which allows you to get involved with everything, but then second year rolls around and you just get hammered. There is talk about moving the health issues class to first year (which is where I think it should belong anyway).
In addition, I think they really want to focus more on the systems oriented approach than discrete classes. Many people like the idea of discrete classes, but it really does make it a pain to tie information together as you go. The dean was saying that rather than having to recall pharmacology for one aspect, physiology for another, pathology for another and biochem for another, it seemed logical to have that full integrated together for a particular disease/condition.
On the clinical side, aside from increasing research, they are trying to get some residency programs together. We are currently affiliated with a peds and obgyn residency in Pensacola and a family medicine residency in Tallahassee. There will be an internal medicine residency starting up in Tallahassee. I've heard there is a general surgery residency in the pipeline, although I'm not sure of where.
Rotations, I haven't heard of too much change so far. I wouldn't be surprised if they announced an affiliation with somewhere like Ft. Myers within the next 5 years. Right now we have the CDCS system, which is used to (painfully) log all of our patients and what we did. They are in the midst of a redesign, although it is moving at a very slow pace. I'm actually part of the committee for that (supposedly..haven't heard anything) because of my previous experience and interest in technology integration/implementation. The new system aims to be much more efficient. I don't know what their plans are for it, but I'm going to push for a stand alone application that can run on multiple smartphone platorms, as well as iPad and what not. The current entry time can take a couple minutes per patient if you're looking for something particular. My personal goal is to get that to less than 20 seconds once trained if you omit special notes for each entry, which is more than reasonable for the things they offer. I also want it to be a smarter system that lets you organize/create templates or entries in a way that is most fitting for you. If you are on your ob/gyn rotation, you don't need to sift through selections for your psych rotation and if in the rare situation where you do need that entry, you can still get to it.
Hope that helps. I'm sure I left off some things. We are also pushing for lots of stupid little things like better quality lecture recordings and mics that don't cut out during class....and possibly new printers.
Obviously those middle school typing classes paid off....