CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu
By Doug CarlsonJune 2010
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Ten years after its creation and through carefully planned growth, the Florida State University College of Medicine has reached a milestone: The arrival of the 120-member Class of 2014 on campus this week gives the medical school a full enrollment of 480 students.
“It seems entirely appropriate that as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of our legislative establishment, we welcome our 10th class and fulfill the dream of our founders with full enrollment,” said College of Medicine Dean John Fogarty. “As the first new medical school of the 21st century, we are proud of our early successes and look forward to continuing to produce the kind of doctors that Florida needs most.”
The Florida Legislature outlined its plans for enrollment growth in the legislation it passed in 2000 establishing the College of Medicine. The plans called for enrollment to increase each year from an initial class of 30 students that entered in 2001 to a maximum class size not to exceed 120 students.
The college admitted its first full class of 120 students in 2007. With the last of its smaller classes graduating with medical degrees on May 15, the college is now at full enrollment. To date, the College of Medicine has graduated six classes and has 336 alumni.
For the first time since its original group of students, the College of Medicine has a class with more male (59 percent) than female students. The class continues to reflect the diversity the College of Medicine seeks as part of its mission to produce physicians who will work with medically underserved individuals and communities in Florida. Twenty-six percent of the class is from backgrounds that are underrepresented in medicine, including nine black and 20 Hispanic students. The enrollment of Hispanic students is nearly triple the national average for medical schools in the United States.
The Class of 2014 will conclude its first semester of medical school with the annual White Coat Ceremony in August.