Graduate medical education on the UF Health Jacksonville campus has come a long way, from having just a handful of programs to nowadays featuring a dynamic roster of programs that combine to stand as the region’s premier provider of physician training.

Decades ago, the Jacksonville Health Education Program, or JHEP, was the sponsoring entity that provided training via residency programs. It began in 1969 at what was then Duval County Medical Center and operated as an extension service of the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville.

Back then, there were only eight residencies on campus: internal medicine, surgery, emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, orthopaedics, pathology, pediatrics and radiology. Years later, the oral and maxillofacial surgery residency program was introduced, as were fellowships in cardiology and gastroenterology.

Linda Edwards, MD, who completed her residency in internal medicine through JHEP, recalls how different things were back then compared with today.

“The size of the internal medicine residency program was about half the size it is now,” said Edwards, who today is senior associate dean for educational affairs and chief of general internal medicine at the UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville.

“All faculty offices were in the hospital and the number of faculty was probably a dozen or so,” she said. “Call quarters were scattered throughout the hospital, as well as through conference rooms, given that the Learning Resource Center had not been built yet.”

There were fewer departments, as well. For instance, neurology was a division of medicine and emergency medicine was a division of surgery. However, those dynamics and much more began to change in 1985 when University Hospital was designated an affiliate of the University of Florida. That move strengthened the existing educational relationship between the hospital and university and established the UF Health Science Center Jacksonville. 

Over the years, other key strides and feats have included:

• The establishment in 1983 of UF Health TraumaOne, which remains the region’s only adult and pediatric Level I trauma center. That designation is an attractive feature for several of the residency programs, including surgery.
• The college receiving accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in 1995. Louis Russo, MD, and Ann Harwood-Nuss, MD, were instrumental in that effort.
• Designation of University Hospital in 1988 as the metropolitan campus for Gainesville’s UF Health Science Center. All faculty physicians based in Jacksonville became UF faculty.
• Robert Nuss, MD, becoming the first dean of the UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville in 2007.

Over time, other residency programs were added, with the most recent being urology and ophthalmology. Today, the college features 16 accredited residency programs and 23 accredited fellowship programs. In addition, it offers nonstandard fellowship programs in 13 subspecialties.

That roster makes the UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville an ultra-competitive academic health center and an attractive destination for prospective trainees. Each year, nearly 400 medical residents and fellows train on campus, coming from all throughout the United States and from several different countries.

Christopher Schwan, MD, who completed his residency in anesthesiology in 2019, is glad he chose the UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville for training. The combination of quality hands-on clinical training and didactic education prepared him well for practice.

“Medical school lays a great foundation to continue building a solid body of medical knowledge in residency. However, the skills that you master in residency are truly invaluable,” Schwan said. “Additionally, the experience allows you to gain the corporate knowledge to be able to work as an integral team member with other medical colleagues.”

Looking forward, Edwards and other leaders want to find ways to make the college an even more desirable destination for those who seek medical training. For instance, championing greater diversity will further strengthen an educational infrastructure that has enjoyed dedication from department chairs and program directors and years of consistency among key staff in the Office of Educational Affairs.

“While we have a diverse group of residents and faculty, our goal is to further enhance our diversity and be a more inclusive academic health center,” Edwards said.

Visit History.UFHealthJax.org to learn more about our diverse history.