What makes us stand apart from other medical schools? Is it that we hold true to our mission of educating compassionate health care professionals who value the importance of providing care to the underserved? ( We do. ) Or is it that a good portion of our alumni stay in the state to meet the needs of Floridians? ( They do. ) Both are true.

Couple those with the fact we are community-based, meaning our students are in the field learning from practicing physicians and serving thousands of patients each day and you quickly see the positive impact this College of Medicine has on the health of individuals and entire communities.

Instead of learning in an academic medical center, seeing only the sickest patients and learning largely from residents, our students learn one-on-one from community health care providers in their offices, clinics and other outpatient settings, as well as in area hospitals. Those communities are all over the state, near our six regional campuses and our rural/clinical training sites.

We’re mission-driven. A large part of our mission ( see inside front cover ) is to serve the underserved. That starts with choosing the right students. Test scores matter, but so do other factors, such as where they grew up, what motivates them and how they’ve already served in their community. We immerse them in a culture of mutual respect, teamwork and open communication – and prepare them to become lifelong learners.

We’re focused on primary care. Through 2024, more than half of our M.D. alumni matched in one of these primary  care specialties: internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics or obstetrics-gynecology. Most of our alumni now practicing in Florida are in primary care, and a good percentage of those are in rural or other underserved settings, where recruiting new physicians can be a challenge.

You can learn more about the College of Medicine and its impact in our Annual Report .