The Florida State University College of Medicine and Sarasota Memorial Health Care System have received approval to launch a new Emergency Medicine residency program to meet health-care and physician workforce needs in Sarasota and surrounding communities. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)—the sanctioning body of graduate medical education in the U.S. and Canada—approved the program’s initial accreditation last week, clearing the way for SMH and FSU to begin reaching out to graduating medical students interested in enrolling in the specialty program in the summer of 2019. During their three years of training, residents rotate through all of the disciplines in emergency medicine under the supervision of FSU and Sarasota Memorial’s highly qualified, board certified physicians and medical educators. Statewide studies continue to show that the supply of primary care and emergency doctors in the region is critically below residents’ needs.  The state’s physician workforce report shows the supply of primary care physicians in Medicaid Region 8 (including Sarasota, Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Desoto, Glades and Hendry) falls short of demand by more than 25 percent, the most of any region in the state. Dr. Kelly O’Keefe, the program’s founding director, was hired last year to oversee the new program. 

Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation