UCF Medical Program and Medical City near Orlando Keep the Forward Momentum

[Jdog]

UCF plans to open dental school in 2014
May 12, 2011

By Denise-Marie Balona, Orlando Sentinel


University of Central Florida plans to open a dental school near its College of Medicine in the heart of Lake Nona's Medical City.

UCF officials announced Thursday that they're looking to open a College of Dental Medicine in 2014 that would graduate about 100 dentists a year.

But some state officials and administrators at other universities already have begun questioning the need for more dental schools in Florida.

There are only three accredited dental schools statewide: in Gainesville, Bradenton and Fort Lauderdale. UCF is one of at least three public universities discussing plans either to build a new dental school or expand an existing program.

The University of Florida in Gainesville, educating dentists since the 1970s and home to one of the nation's top programs, has been trying to expand for years. It has met resistance from the State University System, though â€" mostly because of a lack of funding, said Teresa Dolan, the college's dean.

Dolan said Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University in Tallahassee is researching the possibility of opening a dental school and could be bringing a proposal forward soon. FAMU refers to its plans on its website.

UCF officials said they don't plan to seek state money and that the project would be self-sustaining through tuition and other resources. The university plans to borrow about $40 million to pay startup costs. A private donor also has committed $10 million to the project.

Not only is a dental school needed in Central Florida, but there also is a demand for one, according to the university.

UF's dental school and the one at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale can accept only a fraction of the students who apply. The third dental school in Florida â€" on the Bradenton campus of Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine â€" starts taking applications for the first time next month.

"The College of Dental Medicine will mean opportunities for our local students to obtain a dental education that they must now leave our area to achieve," UCF President John Hitt said in a statement. "The college will create opportunities to help more people in need of dental care who cannot afford it. And it will provide Central Florida with new jobs and an economic boost in challenging times."

Deborah German, vice president for medical affairs at UCF and dean of the College of Medicine, would oversee the creation of the new dental college.

The college would be the most recent development within Lake Nona's Medical City, already home to several other hospitals and research centers.

UCF's College of Medicine is there, as is the M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Institute and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute.

Nemours Children's Hospital, the Orlando VA Medical Center and a UF research center are under construction.

UCF's board of trustees will take up the issue at its May 26 meeting. If approved, the proposal will be reviewed by the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the State University System.

The university system's chancellor, Frank Brogan, could not be reached for comment Thursday. However, an administrator prepared a report just weeks ago for the Board of Governors, addressing the issue of new dental programs.

The report questioned whether expanding or creating dental programs would help address the state's problems ensuring that poor families have access to dental care.

A major hurdle seems to be the disincentive created by Medicaid reimbursement rates for dentists to become providers, according to the report, written by Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic and Student Affairs R.E. LeMon.

"Until such time as adjustments are made to Medicaid reimbursements and other incentives are created for enticing dentists to practice in underserved areas, the Board of Governors … must weigh the costs of new or expanded dental schools against their respective likelihoods for being the best of fiscal options to provide dental care to the underserved in Florida," LeMon wrote.


http://www.orlandosentinel.com/health/os-ucf-open-dental-school-20110512,0,6396157.story

[Jdog]

Impressive accomplishments...And I love the aggressive timelines envisioned. 

[jandar]

Typical UF move to block any additional schools for medicine. (They do it with law as well).
If you are rejecting a lot of applicants on volume alone, that speaks well that you need more schools.

[CityLife]

Typical UF move to block any additional schools for medicine. (They do it with law as well).
If you are rejecting a lot of applicants on volume alone, that speaks well that you need more schools.

Not everyone is cut out to be a dentist, lawyer, doctor, etc. Just because a significant amount of applicants are rejected doesn't mean there should be more programs. In fact I'd say that if a school/program doesn't reject a significant amount of applicants, it is likely an extremely weak school/program and a waste of tax dollars.

UCF should not have been approved for their new med school a few years ago. It was unneeded pork that Orlando politicians and John Trasher (paid by UCF) pushed through. Now UCF is already pursuing a Dental School? This is a university that has grown waaay to fast and can barely keep its undergraduates happy. I know a few people who attended UCF and some weren't thrilled with their academic experience there. My grad program also had a few UCF graduates that were shocked at how much better FSU was operated compared to UCF.

I don't know much about the demand for dentists in the state, but I know that UCF needs to slow its role and improve its existing programs and infrastructure before it continues trying to expand. Also the need to take out a $40 million loan to start up the program tells me UCF doesn't exactly have its ducks in a row.

[ChriswUfGator]

The reason higher education applications are spiking is because so many people are out of work. With the job market so crappy, a lot of people figure "may as well go back to school while I'm waiting."

Schools only have so many seats, so when you get a huge spike in applicants and they only have X amount of slots, naturally the rejection rate looks terrible. This is not a reason to invest a bunch of money in new schools. Economic conditions are cyclical, so as soon as a new cycle begins you're going to have the reverse problem of underutilization and extreme taxpayer expense.

A permanent solution to a temporary problem will generally have an awful outcome.