<p>It would depend on your personal preference, since both UF Med and UCF Med schools offer completely different experiences. UF Med is established and selective and has been around since 1956, fully accredited. UCF, on the other hand, had its Med School established in the 2005-2006 school year (five years after Florida State), when the Florida Board of Governors voted 15-1 in favor of UCF’s proposal to build a medical college. </p>
<p>In late 2005, an investment company called the Tavistock Group, donated over $12.5 million and 50 acres of land to UCF to help establish their Medical School at Lake Nona (an upscale community just South of the UCF Campus). They also issued a challenge to the Orlando community to help the university raise an additional $12.5 million to boost the total amount of raised funds to $25 million. This $25 million would be eligible for a matching state grant, thus giving UCF the needed $50 million to create the medical college. UCF received well over $100 million in donations, state-matching funds, and land value for the medical college’s establishment including a $1.5M donation from the Dr. Phillips Institute and $1M from Walt Disney World.</p>
<p>In 2007, the prestigious Burnham Institute for Medical Research announced they would be establishing an East Coast Campus and began a search for the location of their new world-class facility. After narrowing their choices to Port St. Lucie and Orlando, Burnham CEO John Reed announced they would be establishing their campus on the newly established UCF Health Sciences Campus at Lake Nona. This prompted many other medical organizations to look into being part of a possible medical cluster in East Orange County that would impact the economy by the billions. </p>
<p>After many feasibility studies, it was revealed that a “Biomedical Cluster” was very possible and many hospitals and centers began to join in. The first was the VA Hospital, which announced it would construct a hospital for the large number of veterans residing in the Orlando area. Next was the Nemours Orlando Children’s Hospital, which announced plans to construct a medical center in the campus. Since then, there have also been announcements of partnerships and collaboration efforts by the M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Center (which will also construct a new facility at the campus), Florida Hospital (which will construct a new facility near the medical cluster), and Orlando Regional to join the newly established “Medical City Life Sciences Cluster.”</p>
<p>A 2006 study of the possible economic impact of the UCF Med School establishment projected $1.4 billion a year in economic activity and over 6,400 new jobs by year ten. Just two years after the study, the impact had already reached over 80% of the projected 10-year activity. A new study performed in 2008 projected a $7.6 billion a year economic impact with the creation of over 30,000 new high-paying jobs. </p>
<p>With that said, a large number of med schools going for preliminary accreditation (meaning they may start the recruiting of students and hiring of faculty) get approved in their second year of application to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). The UCF College of Medicine, however, was granted preliminary accreditation on their first attempt. The LCME site visit team said that UCF’s plan for the College of Medicine is worthy of emulation in the way it uses UCF resources (particularly in information technology, knowledge management, simulation technology, optics and photonics, software development, and faculty development) and has the potential to be a national model in knowledge management and assessment systems. </p>
<p>Just a few months later, UCF announced that their scholarship drive had been completed and was extremely successful. The Orlando Community donated enough funds to cover the costs of a four-year medical degree plus living expenses for the ENTIRE charter class. This would mean that the 40 members in the inaugural class would attend medical school absolutely debt-free. At $160,000 per student, the drive led to donations totaling more than $6.4M. This led to an increase in applicants to the UCF Medical College, as they received over 4,300 applications. Of all students applying to med schools around the country in 2008-2009, over 10% listed UCF as one of their college choices. This staggering number broke a State of Florida record for the most applications ever received by a Florida Medical School. This makes the UCF Med School the most selective in the United States for the 2008-2009 academic year, as there were over 100 applications per spot in the class. UCF received applications from students in all schools in the Top 25 Universities in the National Rankings as released by the U.S. News and World Report publication. The first applicant to be accepted had a 4.0 college GPA and received a perfect score on her MCAT, the examination required for acceptance into a U.S. Medical School. The UCF Med School Admissions Director, who was previously the Admissions Director at USF’s Med School, said he had never seen such high MCAT scores and qualifications in his life. There’s no doubt this first class will contain some of the brightest minds in the United States. </p>
<p>So… to answer your question… the students at UCF are facing a risk. Although their medical education is completely paid for, their school is not yet fully accredited. Experts in the field have reasserted that UCF has all the resources to become fully accredited and there is little doubt that it will. The Dean of the Harvard Medical School (where the UCF Med School Dean received her M.D.) has said that he believes what UCF is doing will pay major dividends in the future. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the UCF College of Medicine is going to be one of the best in the country. With such forward-thinking leaders and administrators, I see nothing but a bright future ahead of UCF.</p>