Medical School at Lake Nona...

UCF’s Healthcare Campus will be located on 50 acres in Lake Nona in south Orlando, just east of the Orlando International Airport and could open as early as fall 2008. The campus will include the College of Medicine, the Burnett College of Biomedical Sciences, already a thriving college on the main campus, and a medical library. The campus could eventually accommodate as many as 5,000 students and faculty who will share up to 2 million square feet of research space and 500,000 square feet of classrooms. UCF’s medical degree program will eventually produce about 120 medical graduates each year. The medical college is a result of collaborative efforts and partnerships with county and city government, research institutes and area hospitals. Florida Hospital and Orlando Regional Healthcare, two of the largest medical systems in the country, have agreed to establish 95 new medical residencies in cooperation with the UCF medical college. The hospitals also will pay 40 percent of the salaries for 50 full-time clinical faculty members and provide support staff and clinical and office space. UCF and the Scripps Research Institute will collaborate on research as part of an agreement reached in March. Common research interests include working toward better therapies for cardiovascular diseases and cancer. The University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine will collaborate on research and the curriculum and will provide student and faculty exchanges. UCF plans to hire another 35 basic science faculty in addition to 20 biomedical science faculty members already in place who will support the College of Medicine. Another 50 clinical faculty members will work at the college part time. UCF has raised $100.3 million in pledges for the medical college, including state matching funds and the value of Tavistock Group’s pledge of 50 acres at Lake Nona. Tavistock also donated $12.5 million. A study showed the medical college alone could generate $1.4 billion a year in economic activity and more than 6,400 jobs by year 10. The impact could be as much as $6.4 billion and nearly 26,000 jobs if a life-science cluster of related research and business develops around the college.

For more information contact Tom Evelyn at tevelyn@mail.ucf.edu.