Fariha Tasnim Amir | Staff Writer
“Through our shared vision and expertise, we can offer hope to families who may have once been told there was none,” FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and Nicklaus Children’s Health System officially join forces with heartfelt motivations to expand pediatric training, clinical care and strengthen research efforts across South Florida.
Announced during a celebration at FIU’s Earlene and Albert Dotson Pavilion on 26th of March, the collaboration brings FIU together with the region’s most prominent pediatric hospital. Their partnership endeavors share the same mission — improving children’s health outcomes through world-class education, research, and innovation.
“This partnership unites two cornerstone institutions, FIU as Miami’s public research university and Nicklaus Children’s as the region’s top pediatric hospital, with a shared purpose: to improve the health and well-being of our community’s children,” said FIU Interim President Jeanette M. Nuñez. “By combining our strengths in education, research, and clinical care, we are creating a pipeline of future physicians and groundbreaking discoveries that will transform pediatric care in South Florida and beyond.”
The U.S. is expected to face a daunting shortage of nearly 13,000 pediatricians by 2037. Through this collaboration, FIU and Nicklaus Children’s aim to tackle this unfortunate future. Their plan includes increasing the number of trained physicians through expanding residency and fellowship programs, encouraging students to pursue careers in pediatrics, and attracting top medical talent to the region.
“We believe that when a public university medical school joins with a children’s hospital, we can do more than educate doctors—we can create cures and train pediatricians who understand our neighbors and their special needs,” said Dr. Juan C. Cendan, dean of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.
Currently, FIU medical students complete their third-year pediatric clerkships at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital as part of their core training. Approximately 120 medical students rotate through the hospital each year to gain hands-on experience in a professional setting.
For many in the FIU community, the partnership is deeply personal. “Matching at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital was a dream come true. Now, as I prepare to become an attending physician at the same hospital, I’m experiencing a full-circle moment filled with gratitude and hope,” said Dr. San Martin, a proud FIU med school alumna who completed her pediatric residency, served as chief resident, and is now finishing her pediatric hospitalist fellowship at Nicklaus Children’s.
The partnership also reinstates a shared commitment to expanding access to care for a wide range of patients across Florida. “I’m particularly pleased that we will be providing functional precision medicine clinical trials to children with cancers that come from minority populations,” FIU professor Dr. Diana Azzam shared in a 2023 interview about her cancer research. “These patients often don’t have access to these clinical trials,” she had said. Dr. Azzam worked with Nicklaus Children’s during her feasibility studies for her research.
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