7 Best Medical Schools in Florida

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Florida may be known as the Sunshine State, attracting people from all over the world to holiday there for its beaches, its nightlife, and its attractions such as the Walt Disney World Resort. It is also a great destination for studying marine wildlife, with fantastic features such as the Florida Reef – the only living coral barrier reef in the US.

It is no wonder then that Florida is a great place to want to live and study. For medical school, Florida is home to a few great universities offering high-quality tuition and opportunities for practical clinical training, too. Below are the best medical schools in Florida.

Top Medical Schools in Florida

1. University of Florida College of Medicine

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  • Admissions
  • Admission Stats:
    • Average GPA: 3.79
    • Average MCAT: 514
    • Acceptance Rates: 4.6%

The University of Florida College of Medicine are focused on training students ready to adapt to an ever-changing landscape in the domain of medical care. Their mission is to help students become the best physicians they can be, starting with the very first days of medical school. They prioritize learning in small groups of students, encouraging interaction and development of a strong base of knowledge of the basic sciences. The University of Florida College of Medicine is the best medical school in Florida because of its curriculum and placement rate.

After the first years of studying basic pre-clinical medicine, the clinical program offers the opportunity to work with a large variety of patients, thanks to access to various training hospitals and medical care centers. There is also the opportunity for international service and clinical training in developing countries and the university organizes international medical outreach trips for students interested in community support.

2. University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine

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  • Admissions
  • Admission Stats:
    • Average GPA: 3.76
    • Average MCAT: 515
    • Acceptance Rates: 4%

Located in Tampa, the University of South Florida (USF), one of the top medical schools in Florida, opened its College of Medicine in 1971. They accept an incoming class of around 50 students every year for their MD program, focusing on access to faculty and patients for every one of them and the availability of top-level technological resources during the MD program. The college offers two parallel programs for the medical degree, allowing students to have a geographical focus and an area of emphasis.

The CORE Program takes four years and is taught in Tampa, featuring small group learning, integrated clerkships, and year 4 career tracks to help students secure their desired residency after graduating. Students can choose to focus in areas outside of the normal curriculum, in fields such as Health Systems Engineering, Public Health, Medical Education and Health Disparities.

The other option is to follow the SELECT program, where you will spend two years in Tampa following the same integrated curriculum as the CORE program, then moving to Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania for the next two years. Within this program you can obtain a graduate certificate in Leadership, Health Systems, and Value-Based Patient Centered Care. The central aim of the program is to develop medical leadership skills.

3. University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

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  • Admissions
  • Admission Stats:
    • Average GPA: 3.72
    • Average MCAT: N/A (87th percentile)
    • Acceptance Rates: 1.7%

The Miller School at the University of Miami offers an MD program backed by a strong research program and extensive laboratory work is available for those students who want to delve into an area of research as part of their studies or as subsequent work. The School was founded in 1952 and was the first medical school in Florida, now including 21 clinical departments and 45 centers and institutes of advanced research. Their extensive faculty of 1,400 members allows them to offer detailed research into many diverse areas of medicine.

The Miller School of Medicine is also very strongly connected to their immediate community in the Miami-Dade County, which is home to a wide gap between residents, especially at the economic level. With nearly 20% of residents living below the federal poverty level, and with a highly diverse population, Miami-Dade County offers medical students the opportunity to work with disadvantaged families and actually support and learn from the community during your clinical training. There are many outreach programs also available through the medical school.

4. University of Central Florida College of Medicine

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  • Admissions
  • Admission Stats:
    • Average GPA: 3.8
    • Average MCAT: 512
    • Acceptance Rates: 2%

The UCF College of Medicine has only been open since 2006, but it is highly popular thanks to its high-tech labs and learning tools and a “pioneering spirit” that they claim as part of their mission statement. Having been built from scratch, all facilities are last-generation and offers nationally renowned biomedicine programs for undergraduates and graduates alike. The College is a research-based medical school and a founding member of Orlando’s Medical City at Lake Nona. This includes a 170,000-square-foot medical education facility for the medical school exclusively and a brand new Biomedical Sciences Building.

The MD program offers students a clinical experience from the very first year of study, with students working in the community at least twice a month at this stage. They also benefit from innovative simulation and animation experiences with human patient mannequin simulators and online interactive virtual patients for their practical training.

5. Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine

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  • Admissions
  • Admission Stats:
    • Average GPA: 3.76
    • Average MCAT: 512
    • Acceptance Rates: 1.7%

Next in our list of top medical schools in Florida is Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. Florida Atlantic University opened the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine in 2010 in Boca Raton. Each year only 64 students are accepted, out of which 4 or 5 students every year enroll into an MD/PhD program. The school offers an integrated patient-focused curriculum which has essential learning objectives distributed across the years of tuition, so that graduates achieve knowledge in areas from team-based chronic disease management to health promotion etc.

It is worth noting that you can only apply to the FAU medical school if you are a US citizen or permanent resident.

6. Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine

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  • Admissions
  • Admission Stats:
    • Average GPA: 3.7
    • Average MCAT: 509
    • Acceptance Rates: 3.9%

The Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine is located on the Modesto A. Maidique Campus of Florida International University in Miami. Since 2006, the number of students applying has increased exponentially, while they have retained only 43 spots for new students in the MD program every year. The college is named after its main benefactor.

The MD program takes four years to complete and is closely based in the community and students have the opportunity to experience caring for a very diverse population including both inpatient and outpatient clinics. They also run an outreach program called the Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP program.

7. Florida State University College of Medicine

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  • Admissions
  • Admission Stats:
    • Average GPA: 3.74
    • Average MCAT: 505
    • Acceptance Rates: 4.6%

The final university in our list of best medical schools in Florida is Florida State University College of Medicine. Created in June 2000, the College of Medicine at Florida State University is located in the state capital of Tallahassee. The MD program runs for four years and is geared predominantly at Florida residents with an accent on welcoming a very diverse class, from a social and economical perspective. Their vision is to offer a curriculum “for the 21st century” and the college has redesigned its MD curriculum on a fully integrated biopsychosocial model. They allow students to practice clinical skills from the very start of their first year, meeting patients, doing community visits and working with simulated cases.

At FSU, medical students have a broad range of research opportunities and there is an option to also engage in research over the summer as early as the first year of medical school, thanks to Summer Research Fellowships. A number of additional year-long research fellowships also exist.

 

I hope that this article was helpful. If you are interested, visit the USA Scholarships Page!