Support FAU med plan

Despite the Legislature's generally positive reaction to the proposed expansion of Florida Atlantic University's two-year medical program to one offering a four-year degree, the $250,000 placeholder item in the Senate budget shows that FAU can't relax. Nor should the $2 million in the House budget distract the Board of Governors from approving FAU for that amount in legislative support, which is needed to begin hiring faculty and staff.

President Frank Brogan says FAU is on Thursday's medical education subcommittee meeting agenda of the board that supervises the state's 11 public universities. From there, the proposal should move to the full Board of Governors meeting that immediately follows. At that point, officials can address any questions that have arisen since FAU presented its proposal. Then the board should expedite the medical education that, its own research acknowledges, Florida's size, growth and elderly-leaning demographics already require.

The fact that Florida International University and the University of Central Florida are seeking approval for entirely new, $100 million-plus medical schools could tempt the board to consider jointly, again, all three proposals. But FAU's version is dramatically different, since it would build on the existing partnership in which students take two years of classes at FAU and complete their degrees at the University of Miami. That partnership would become private-public with Boca Raton Community Hospital's commitment to build, on FAU's Boca Raton campus, the only medical teaching hospital in Southeast Florida other than Jackson Memorial in Miami.

For the board to say that it still wants to examine FAU's proposal along with others may seem politically palatable. But if it really wants to take back the role that the Legislature has usurped, the board should be making these difficult decisions. That means continuing to look at the other proposals but approving this one now. FAU's model is cost-efficient: its $15 million price would include the current program's $5 million. It would increase by from 100 to 125 the number of residency slots available in the state. It is the only one of the three that can be running in a reasonable time. Even then, the first residents wouldn't start before 2009.

Some vision could have prevented the current teacher and nurse shortages. The state only will regret it later if it doesn't act today.