Johannes W. Vieweg, M.D., FACS, Founding Dean, NSU Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed our nation’s physician shortage, the need for both reform in medical education and the delivery of health care in the U.S. As the eighth accredited Florida medical school awarding the M.D. degree, Nova Southeastern University’s Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine (NSUMD) has steadily advanced to prepare the next generation of physicians and to engage in life-saving research, bringing hope to patients seeking treatment and cures. In February 2021, NSUMD was granted provisional accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, a major milestone attesting to the quality of our medical education program, moving it one step closer to full accreditation in 2023.
NSUMD was created to do much more than train skilled and diverse physicians. It was built to serve as a preeminent state and national resource for catalyzing healthcare leadership, excellent clinical care, population health and cutting-edge biomedical research.
A new HCA hospital, located on NSU’s emerging Academical Village at its Fort Lauderdale/Davie campus, will not only deliver comprehensive health services, but also focus on medical education, research opportunities and health innovations. This creates a powerful trifecta of healthcare, education and research that will be unsurpassed by any other health system in Broward County. NSUMD serves as the hospital’s academic medicine anchor, providing a nucleus for attracting doctors and other health-related industries, and triggering substantial economic expansion in the Greater Fort Lauderdale region.
NSU’s ultimate goal is for the Academical Village to become an international destination for patients, doctors, health workers, researchers, students and industry leaders. NSU’s unique institutional setting, its rich canvas of facilities, educational resources, talented faculty, forward-thinking leadership and community partnerships, coupled with Florida’s rapid population growth projected over the next decade, creates a one-of-a-kind opportunity to accelerate much-needed access to state-of-the-art public healthcare services.
As NSUMD prepares for full accreditation, our faculty remain laser focused on furthering the program’s educational quality standards and ensuring our students have access to real-world clinical experiences. NSUMD is carefully evaluating the lessons learned during the pandemic and their implications for both teaching and learning in the classroom, small group and clinical education settings, incorporating innovations wherever possible into our curriculum and daily practices.
NSUMD has a unique role to play, improving health outcomes using data analytics, process engineering and forecasting tools to design a person-centered, multidisciplinary care model that rewards value (results) at an affordable cost. Enabling the transition from volume-based to value-based healthcare through a deeper understanding and better management of the social determinants of health will be among the most important initiatives that NSUMD leads, with the goal of building a distinct, community-driven population health strategy that benefits our patients in unprecedented ways.
One thing the pandemic exposed was the need for the medical community to understand the circumstances under which their patients lived. The simple act of providing a vaccine proved difficult for many communities whose residents were hesitant to get vaccinated or were unable to make their way to a vaccination site. It is this understanding that must fuel medicine moving forward.
To that end, NSUMD’s faculty collaborates with local communities, businesses, practices and health organizations to advance our understanding of the socioeconomic, behavioral and structural drivers of health. This research adopts a whole-person perspective, attentive to what patients eat, how they sleep and where they live, learn and play.
By studying relationships and the interactions patients have within their communities, we are able to recommend and introduce lifestyle interventions that promote healthy living and aging. This perspective will drive critical features of our region, such as access to health care services for underserved communities of Floridians, reducing fragmentation of care.
NSUMD is stepped out on the national stage, positioning itself as an innovative, forward-looking, and community-oriented medical school. It is clear that NSU and its new medical school are a major force on the health care landscape, and that is something our community can be very proud of.
Johannes Vieweg M.D.
Founding Dean
Nova Southeastern University
Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine
