Free Example of Miller School of Medicine Essay

This study aims to demystify the roles that the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine plays in helping the Miami community.  First, the study will give a brief history of the medical school. The study will find the community services that the university has initiated to reach out to its neighbors. It is from this information that the study will draw a conclusion that is expected to layout, in a nutshell, the university's role in the Miami community.

The Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine is the academic medical center for the University of Miami. It was founded in 1952. The Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine named after Mr. Miller the former President of Lennar Corporation, who gave a 100 million dollars donation in 2004. The University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine is in the heart of Miami’s civic center on 153 acres of land. It is the second-largest medical school in the state of Florida in terms of students’ selection with a 5.7% acceptance rate of the overall students who qualify and apply for medicine. It boasts of special funding due to its four-year MD/MPH program. The university owns three hospitals. As a result, it is able to record over one million encounters with patients annually. These three hospitals create the overall University of Miami Health System. They are the University of Miami Hospital, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Anne Bates Leach Eye Hospital, and other affiliates (University Of Miami, 1).

Jackson Memorial Hospital forms the major teaching facility for the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of medicine. This institution is an excellent center for patient care and as a non-profit, tertiary hospital with over 1550 licensed beds for in-patients.   It is a magnet of medical researches with over 1500 ongoing projects. It also boasts of being the major referral facility. This is because it is the only adult and level 1 pediatric trauma center in Miami-Dade County. As a result, the five programs at this facility have merited it to rank among the élite hospitals in the United States. Every day the faculty, students, and support staff at Jackson Memorial Hospital work hard to pursue knowledge that will make the practice of medicine easier and more successful through research into new fronts of knowledge, innovative approaches meant to improve human health in all facets of the complex disciplines (Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, 1).

The Miller’s School investigators do this through diverse know-how on ways that they can bridge diverse disciplines in the field of human health and collaborate the knowledge collected in each of its campuses, different programs as well as collaboration with other institutions and corporate partners to make sure that the researchers’ bench gets to the bedside of patients so that they get the best medical treatment invented and tested to fruition. In order that Miller School achieves its goals of continuously conducting its broad spectrum of researches in all the programs offered at the university, building new technologies in the field of medicine, supporting its graduate students and postgraduate trainees, it requires a lot of financing. It receives these funds from university activities, private and public agencies (University Of Miami, 1).

At the present Miller Medical School of the University of Miami has more than 1,500 ongoing research projects in different fields. The researchers are rapidly gaining progress in many of these researches. They are getting solutions to some of the devastating ailments that affected humans such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, autism, Alzheimer’s, and obesity. These research projects are all-inclusive. They have taken all tenets of society into consideration. For instance, there are researches on embryos for centenarians. This is because they all need better treatment, cure for diseases, and new discoveries for ending excruciating pain meted by illnesses such as cancer and trauma (Jackson Health System, 1).

These discoveries at the Miller Medical School of the University of Miami have been facilitated by the state of art facilities that the university possesses. These facilities enable quick accessibility of information in its databases for the researchers, exceptionally tools of data analysis, and good storage of unprecedented amounts of complex research data. This has made research work for the new generation of researchers who poise to uncover the genetic origins of chronic, complex diseases and stem cell research a lot easier when compared to the previous generation of researchers (Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, 1).

The University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine since it started in 1952 has articulately stated over the years that its goals are to serve the people of South Florida and the Caribbean. It has continuously committed itself to serve the people surrounding it.  It has achieved that goal through research and partnership initiatives. It is clear that to best serve the Miami community the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine had to actively seek partnerships with educational, non-profit, governmental and medical organizations that serve South Florida and the Caribbean (Jackson Health System, 1).

It achieves this goal through a multitude of services to its many neighbors in the form of outstanding clinical care, research trials and community health fairs through mobile vans. This proved through its databases. It serves more than one million patients per annum. The university has committed itself to offer its graduate and post-graduate students outstanding education for propelling its goals towards making sure the society around and beyond it receives the best medical attention possible in the field. It has set itself as a leading research center for patient care and community service (Ilyas, 65).

The university created patient services meant to ensure that all patients under its care received the best medical attention under stern and excellent medical service guidelines. In order to meet these strict guidelines, it formed the University of Miami Behavioural Health. It would be a tenet of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences.  Its purpose was to handle the behavioral health benefits of its employees and their dependents. This initiative was successful and outgrew its first goal. It now heads University of Miami mental health benefits, the AvMed Health Plan, JMH Health Plan, South Florida Community Care Network, Children's Medical Services, and several managed state Medicaid plans. This department evolved from being a tenet of another department but into one of the most successful non-profit, academic-managed behavioral health care organizations in the nation. It enlists as one of the most comprehensive behavioral health networks in Florida with over 50 faculty psychiatrists, psychologists licensed psychotherapists, and over 1,100 highly trained community-based colleagues that create the department’s round activities on behavioral and mental health (Ilyas, 63).

University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine also offers its services to the community through its Division of Psychology. This tenet of the university offers therapeutic and consultative services for a range of conditions to the public. It deals with treating all groups of society. They include children, adolescents, adults, and older people with a range of proof-based treatments. The treatments may take the form of person and group psychotherapy, performance-enhancement, adjunctive treatment of severe mental illness vis-à-vis dementia and treatment of depression and anxiety. In order that this division of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine can meet its all-inclusive goals of serving the community, it has appointed specialists whose sole goal is to tackle women's issues, HIV related problems, attention deficit disorder, substance abuse, serious mental illness and the more general therapeutic issues (Jackson Health System, 1).

On an annual basis, the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine supports United Way, a significant community agency. This agency`s goals are to help the elderly in the community, respond to emergencies, offer basic needs and to encourage the civic department of Miami-Dade county to get involved in this community service. In the 2007 University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine's involvement with the Miami community raised about 500,000 dollars. It donated this money to United Way so that it would meet its community services plan for that year. University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine faculty, students and staff also organized support blood drives, provided hurricane Andrew victims with medical services and disaster relief.  On another front, it supports the annual efforts of the Humane Society, American Heart Association and the ING Marathon so that they can meet their social responsibilities (University Of Miami, 1).

In 2008 Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine adopted Allapattah Middle School.  Allapattah Middle School has 650 students. It is near the medical campus. This high school became the stepping stone through which Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine devised special programs and presentations. These programs entailed its members providing support and information on careers and healthy living to the high school students and their families. It also invested in the students’ academic growth by motivating them and providing resources meant to encourage academic achievement through rewarding of success. The success of the Allapattah High School program led to Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine receiving the support of the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation. This new support aimed to develop and carry out a comprehensive school-based health program within the Miami-Dade County Public School system. This meant that the first program was a success and Allapattah High School was a living example. The new initiative with Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation's design provided students with on-site access to comprehensive primary care, nursing and mental health services. It also included prevention and wellness education for all students in Miami-Dade County. This program would be incorporated in the school system from elementary all through to high school (Jackson Health System, 1).

The Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine's dedication to serve its community went beyond its strong community presence in inpatient care but also to other communal services to the society. Its faculty and students formed an alliance in which it would extend its services to the poor, indigent and disenfranchised. In order this new frontier in serving its neighbours could be achieved, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine had to consult the Department of Community services to find those who needed help most. They created a student-run non-profit organization that held free clinics to treat people in the community. It also held several annual health fairs in other areas of Florida not red-flagged. Department of Community Services' contribution in helping the needy in the community along with allies such as the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine was astounding. In 2007 it got some recognition and named the Health Care Hero by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. This achievement accredited to its cooperation with it support stakeholders such as Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine (Department of family medicine and community health, 1).

In South Florida, a group of women came together to form the Forum on Women’s Health. This forum had 150 women. These women dedicated their life and time to serving the community.  They wanted to enhance the health and well-being of all women in South Florida, these women’s families and other members of their community. This dedication to service to less fortunate and the needy in South Florida got the notice of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. This group of dedicated women needed technical support. This support came in 2006 when the university collaborated with the forum to achieve its goals. This collaboration became fruitful due to the Women’s Forum in its possession of leading information that specified the medical concerns the women of South Florida required. As a result, the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine staff and students were able to respond to these concerns concisely without delay. The Forum also proved crucial in connecting the university crew of doctors, nurses, and researchers with its members, their families and the community at large due to its grassroots connectivity. This facilitated easy community outreach and formulation of financial support programs for the medically underserved members of the South Florida Community (Ilyas, 62).

Earlier research, done in Palm Beach County, had shown its population growth was higher than in other areas in Miami. As a result, it projected that by 2011 Palm Beach would have a shortage of 356 physicians to take care of its population. Therefore, there was an urgent need to fill this deficit. Consequently, the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine decided to extend its community services to this place. It wanted to train a new team of community health workers to serve Palm Beach through its FAU’s campus. It would select and register 256 medical students in the next three years at JFK Hospital and the VA. This is because these three institutions are crucial in Palm Beach's medical programs. They would train the selected group of residents at these institutions (English, 130).

In order that the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine could meet the dream of its co-founders in ensuring, it became a leader in supporting the community that surrounds it, it entered into partnerships with a number of relevant stakeholders who would help it in achieving this goal. It joined the governmental organizations, educational institutions and community associations to form Miami Health District. The new partnership has transformed the neighborhoods around the medical campus. The Miami Health District success made the medical school neighborhood appealing to live in, work, shop, and most important - to receive world-class medical care (UHealth University of Miami, 1).

It is clear that society is in dire need of constant help from external groups, people and organizations. These groups may take the forms of philanthropists such as the Pap Corps, Friends for Life and University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. They are friends to their communities. The University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine particularly has a passionate belief of helping the Miami community through many initiatives that this study has identified and described. It has used the goodwill of its resource and human capacity to help the Miami community through its patient care, research and education programs. Therefore, it is prudent to close that University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine is a friend of the Miami community. It has helped it meet newer heights to medical services.