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The UF Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research (CSESaR) is currently involved in the “School for the Medical Arts” (SoMA). With $24.8M in funding from the Duval County School System and the U.S. Department of Education, SoMA will become a grade 6 to 12, full high school Magnet program in the U.S. with a medical focus. With the funding, new structures will be built at the site and the enrollment at the school would be doubled. The importance of this for simulation is the role CSESaR played in getting this grant and the role it expects play in the program.
The saga started two years ago. We spoke with the school principal for the Darnell Cookman Middle School across the street from the UFCOM-J and Shands Jacksonville Medical Center campus, and offered tours of CSESaR as special interest field trips. We were excited to find out that the school was already designated a medically-focused magnet school. We established weekly tours of 8 students each for about 6 months. These 6th - 8th grade students came to the tour in full school-color scrubs, with stethoscopes around their necks. They were avid learners. This led to a summer student intern program and plans for a CSESaR open house for school parents. That drew the attention of other city school administrations and the Duval County school board. From that, and the knowledge of 9th-12th grade medical programs elsewhere, came the idea of a full high school medical program, the grant and funding support from Duval county.
The program includes substantial simulation training at CSESaR - traditional hands-on simulation as well as cutting edge virtual reality and hybrid scenarios. We expect students will graduate from high school with basic life support certification (BLS) and associate nursing credentials. Expectantly, they will then enter a college pre-med program with this unusual and advantageous background, subsequently entering medical school in a far more prepared state than the usual pre-med student.
This is not intended to be just a local CSESaR effort. CSESaR will encourage cooperative efforts among medical schools and simulation centers in the U.S. and around the world to support the effort.