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The Weight of Expectation

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University of Central Florida School of Medicine

Conveniently, an elevator arrives — going down — just as Dr. Deborah German steps out to leave her third-floor office in a building at the University of Central Florida’s research park east of Orlando. The doors open with a “ding,” but she passes them up and heads for the stairwell. “I just always take the stairs, to fit in some exercise,” she explains.

German, 56, also parks in a space as far away from her office as possible so she’ll walk a few more steps each day. Taking the path of least resistance isn’t her way, she acknowledges. Which helps explain why she’s taken on a job in which the days are as endless as the expectations.

As founding dean of UCF’s new College of Medicine, German, former associate med school dean at Vanderbilt, presides over an institution that has, at present, no faculty, no students and, perhaps most daunting, no accreditation. By the time the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (known as the LCME) comes calling in December, German must have all the details in place: Curriculum covering everything from molecules to tissues; policies covering everything from student privacy to faculty grievances.

She also must raise $1.6 million in private donations to offer full scholarships to the 40 students who make up the school’s inaugural class, expected to arrive in the fall of 2009. How better to convince a promising future doctor to join a med school with no track record?

“We’re going to attract a certain type of medical student,” says German. “An adventurer-pioneer-inventor-creator-builder type.”

Whatever type of students they attract, the school and German face expectations far beyond increasing the number of doctors in Florida. Greater Orlando is the largest metropolitan area in the nation with no medical school — one of UCF’s arguments to the Legislature for granting it the institution that will cost Florida taxpayers at least $200 million over 10 years.

The regional business community sees the school as an essential element in moving the area’s economy further out from under the long shadow cast by theme parks and tourism, envisioning a kind of medical and research mecca. In supporting the school, former Gov. Jeb Bush “made it clear that he didn’t necessarily buy the doctor’s shortage argument, but what he was much more interested in was the economic development that the med school would bring,” says Rasesh “Sesh” Thakkar, senior managing director of Orlando’s Tavistock Group, a private investment company founded by billionaire British businessman Joe Lewis.

In fall 2005, Tavistock donated $30 million in cash and land to establish the UCF Health Campus at Lake Nona — a pivotal element in convincing the Legislature to create the med school. The 50-acre research and academic campus established the footprint for what is now slated to include the med school, the California-based Burnham Institute for Medical Research and a $560-million Veterans Administration hospital.

The expectations won’t lessen once the med school begins turning out doctors. Local leaders expect it to pull in millions in research dollars and work with Burnham to create a stronger biotech industry and more entrepreneurial spinoffs — and, along the way, bring more doctors into the community and raise the bar for local healthcare. “What we have, I believe, is what Gov. Bush dreamed of when he put up the money for Scripps and for Burnham,” Thakkar says. “A true cluster is forming.”

Dr. Deborah German

Born: 1950 in Providence, Rhode Island

Family: Two grown daughters, one in Nashville and one at Duke law school.

Med school: Harvard University Residency: University of Rochester, New York

Fellowship: Duke University Aditional: Scholar in Residence, Association of American Medical Colleges

Medical specialty: Rheumatic and genetic diseases

Career track: Associate dean of medical education at Duke; senior associate dean of medical education at Vanderbilt; President and CEO, Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville

Salary as UCF med school dean: $400,000

medical advice: “I think if you want to be happy throughout your life, always have three goals: Physical, spiritual and educational. If you always have all three going at the same time, life’s good.”


Field Work: Bulldozers clear the way for dean Dr. Deborah German’s med school at Lake Nona. The school will be a key component of a 50-acre research and academic campus, which will also house the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and a $560-million VA hospital. German is working to raise $1.6 million for full scholarships to the entire 40-student inaugural class.

As bulldozers chug across the Lake Nona site, German divides her time between cheerleading-style speeches — Thakkar describes her as having “mesmerized” the community — and the nuts-and-bolts of starting the school. Her biggest challenge may be convincing top-notch faculty and students to come to UCF. In late May, she said some administrators had accepted positions but she wasn’t ready to announce the appointments. Coming to an unaccredited school “is risk, I have to be honest,” German says. “I cannot establish a track record until I establish a track record.”

German wants to be able to offer full scholarships to each of the 40 students in the inaugural class. So far, Orlando’s business community has come through with only four of the 40. “I’d like every major corporation in the city to give one,” she says.

In April, German got a jump on UCF’s application to the accreditation committee. She submitted a 5-inch-thick plan for the med school one month ahead of schedule. And, taking no chances that the physical space will be ready as planned for the inaugural class in fall 2009, German ordered up facilities in UCF’s research park that will pass muster in case of delay at Lake Nona. “I heard there are hurricanes in this state,” German says. “We’ve got a plan A, but we’ve also got a plan B.”

At a recent meet-and-greet with the Panamerican Medical Association of Central Florida, some doctors questioned German’s non-traditional curriculum plan: Courses are integrated into an organ-based curriculum that teaches basic science and clinical science together. The approach, similar to that being developed at Florida International University, is the trend at medical schools around the nation. German calls it an effort to “teach medicine in the way our students are going to see it unfold in a clinical setting.”

Some also worry whether German has designed the med school’s curriculum and organizational structure without input from the administrators and faculty members who must buy into it and carry it out. German says the planning has been “a real community effort,” involving faculty from various UCF colleges including health, nursing, engineering, business and biomedical sciences, as well as physicians in the community who have served on medical faculties.

German acknowledges she tends toward the hard path. (In 2001, she finished the Honolulu Marathon.) Four out of five finalists for the UCF dean’s job thought enough of the challenge that they dropped out of the running. German was the last one standing. She says she faced a “very hard decision” with three job offers, including one to build a medical school in New York. Ultimately, she says, she chose UCF because of the widespread support for the med school within the community, from Tavistock and other donations to UCF President John Hitt’s making “the entire university available to me.”

She’s ready to deliver on the expectations, she says. “Central Florida wants it all,” she says. “We want to be a 21st century medical school — what a school like Harvard or Johns Hopkins was to the century in which they were born.”

Field Work: Bulldozers clear the way for dean Dr. Deborah German’s med school at Lake Nona. The school will be a key component of a 50-acre research and academic campus, which will also house the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and a $560-million VA hospital. German is working to raise $1.6 million
for full scholarships to the entire 40-student inaugural class.