The UF College of Medicine, the largest college within our academic health center, opened in 1956, driven by a three-part mission to increase Florida’s supply of highly qualified physicians, provide advanced health care services to the residents of Florida and foster discovery in health research that would impact our nation and world. Each year, the College of Medicine welcomes more than 300 new physicians from across the country who come to complete their training at UF Health hospitals in Gainesville and Jacksonville.

The UF College of Medicine in Gainesville, which comprises 28 research-oriented and clinical science departments and the School of Physician Assistant Studies, is staffed by more than 1,400 faculty members. The UF College of Medicine has graduated more than 5,700 physicians and offers graduate degrees in a number of other programs, including MD-PhD training, biomedical sciences and physician assistant studies.

Over the last 60 years, the college has trained nearly 8,700 physicians through its residency programs, and currently there are 893 residents and fellows training within the UF College of Medicine. Patient care services are provided through the UF Health Physicians faculty practice, UF Health Shands and the Malcom Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center, as well as at several community health care sites and other affiliated hospitals in Florida. College faculty are national leaders in fundamental, translational and clinical research and are involved in collaborative work in several research institutions and centers within the university.

In 2012, the UF College of Medicine revamped its curriculum to better prepare graduates for the changing world of health care by providing more exposure to clinical training early in their medical education and to place more emphasis on small group and collaborative learning. The George T. Harrell, M.D., Medical Education Building, which opened in 2015, was designed to align with the key elements of the new curriculum and to promote experiential learning through a team-based approach.

The UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville has 455 faculty members, 448 of whom are physicians, among 17 clinical departments.

The college offers 37 ACGME- or CODA-accredited residency and fellowship programs, as well as 11 clinical fellowships. More than 380 resident physicians and fellows train on the UF Health Jacksonville campus and in affiliated outpatient practices, making it the fifth largest GME program in Florida. For 2018, 40 percent of graduating residents remained in Jacksonville, and 58 percent remained in Florida. Doximity ranks the college’s residency programs in emergency medicine and integrated interventional radiology as among the most reputable programs in the South.

In addition, the college offers clerkships for third- and fourth-year medical students, as well as physician assistant students, primarily from the university’s main campus. UF medical students spend, on average, about 25 percent of their third year in required clerkships in Jacksonville, enhancing the learning experience offered by the university. More than one-third of residents who train on our campus completed at least one rotation here while in medical school.

As the birthplace of the Human Patient Simulator, considered the gold standard in patient simulation technology, the UF College of Medicine takes full advantage of the latest technologies and approaches in experiential learning. Under the direction of the UF Center for Experiential Learning and Simulation in Gainesville and the UF Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research in Jacksonville, UF Health is committed to delivering simulation training that develops and enhances the clinical expertise, competence and teamwork skills of health care students and professionals to facilitate high-quality patient care and safety to advance the field.

The key objectives in UF Health’s simulation training programs include:

• Experiential learning for the deliberate practice of technical skills
• Practice of non-technical team and communications behaviors
• Practice critical time-pressured situations
• Assessment of systems to identify safety threats

The UF Center for Experiential Learning and Simulation has the potential to develop into a nationally and internationally recognized center of excellence known for the quality and innovation of its educational offerings. The unique environment of UF offers opportunities to develop, apply and evaluate innovative educational techniques in collaboration with domain experts who are not typically part of health care education, including those in fields such as industrial engineering, sociology, communication and linguistics, and organizational psychology.

There is already a strong foundation in place with respect to the Center for Safety, Simulation and Advanced Learning Technologies, or CSSALT, which has a long history of leveraging technology and engineering to continually improve experiential learning. The proximity of these experts to the College of Medicine enhances the opportunities for innovation, successful grant funding, and the development of generalizable knowledge and scholarship.

UF Health Shands Hospital extends the potential scope and penetration of the experiential learning program to the actual clinical learning environment. It is an ideal environment to align experiential learning, interdisciplinary clinical skills and team training as well as patient safety and systems learning. There is robust enthusiasm for interprofessional and interdisciplinary simulation at UF Health, from undergraduate medical, PA, nursing and other health professions students to practicing health care professionals.

Simulation education saves lives and provides residents with a bridge between the classroom and the emergency room. Physicians incorporated simulation training into the UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville emergency medicine residency curriculum in 2000 to provide a structured setting for the deliberate practice of clinical skills, and began using high-fidelity simulations in 2002. A 24,000-square-foot facility opened on the UF Health Jacksonville campus two years later that is supported by the hospital and the University of Florida.’

The UF Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research offers unique opportunities to explore a wide variety of training scenarios, including mass casualty events, multiple patient encounters and a continuum of care from remote interventions through emergency room admissions and full surgical interventions. The training also provides self-reflection for students, and the opportunity for appropriate and timely supervisor feedback.

The center is separated into three areas:

• Main Simulation and Conference/Instruction Area — This 7,000-square-foot area occupies a former hospital emergency department. The area is supported by an additional 800-square foot conference and instructional area.
• Operating Room Simulation and Instruction Area — This 14,000-square-foot area contains 12 operating rooms. It is supported by an additional 1,900-square-foot instruction area.
• Disaster Simulation Area — This area includes a previous parking lot and ambulance entrance to the former emergency department. It is prepared to be equipped with tents, emergency mobile facilities and other disaster preparation equipment, as training scenarios and events may require.

The primary goal is to create an institutional learning center, which is nationally recognized as a center of excellence for simulation training, that promotes broadly disciplined health care education and patient safety through simulated training. This goal is achieved by broadening the educational experience to maximize learning opportunities for students, residents, hospital personnel and prehospital providers. Additionally, CME courses for local and regional training are provided.