Sarasota Memorial, FSU announce residency program

A growing population will bolster a new program at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. 

Sarasota Memorial Hospital and Florida State University College of Medicine announced today that the two organizations will be partnering up to develop an internal medicine residency program in Sarasota. 

According to a press release from Sarasota Memorial, Sarasota County grew by 20,000 people 2010 and 2014, and the county’s demographic has more than 100,000 residents 65 years and older.

The program will produce about 10 new internal medical physicians per year after it reaches full capacity, according to a press release. 

“Creating a residency program is the next logical step in Sarasota Memorial's progression to becoming a teaching hospital, but it's also an important move for our region,” said Steve Taylor, M.D., chief medical operations officer for Sarasota Memorial, in the release. “Without more residency programs, the physician shortage that Florida is experiencing will only worsen as our population swells and our existing physician workforce retires.”

The program will be hosted at Sarasota Memorial, and FSU College of Medicine will sponsor the program institutionally and help develop the curriculum. FSU will also help the hospital recruit a director for the program and assist the hospital in getting accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

It will take about two years to develop the program. The projected timeline predicts the hospital admitting the first residents in 2017. The hospital has already budgeted $5 million in seed money to help get the program up and running for the first three years. After that, Sarasota Memorial will start receiving reimbursements from the federal government through Medicare and dedicated federal funds for teaching hospitals.

To get hands-on experience and certification, medical school graduates have to complete a residency training in their specialty before becoming independent physicians. This new program will be the seventh residency program sponsored by FSU and allow the residents to spend three years at Sarasota Memorial, working in both inpatient and outpatient specialties.

“The College of Medicine commends Sarasota Memorial Health Care System for recognizing the return on investment to the patient community by training more primary care physicians,” said Joan Meek, M.D., associate dean for graduate medical education at the FSU College of Medicine.