Brevard County’s first medical school will launch in summer 2024 at the Florida Institute of Technology campus in Melbourne.

Florida Tech and the Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine entered into an affiliation agreement in November to establish a four-year osteopathic medical school on two floors of Florida Tech’s L3Harris Commons building via a sublease agreement.

Burrell College is a private medical school that launched in 2013 in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and fielded its first class of students three years later.

The inaugural class of 100 students at the new Melbourne medical school is expected to enroll in July 2024 and graduate in May 2028, offering doctorate degrees in osteopathic medicine. This “hybrid” medical school created by both institutions is going through the accreditation process, Burrell College president and co-founder John Hummer said.

“It’s been a lot of work, but we know that it’s going to be worth it. This relationship brings with it a much-needed medical school to Florida,” Travis Proctor, who chairs Florida Tech’s board of trustees, said during a Thursday morning press event at the Denius Student Center.

“It brings Brevard County its first medical school — a critical resource when you consider that it is determined that Florida will be short approximately 18,000 physicians by 2035,” Proctor said.

“Additionally, this is a tremendous opportunity for Brevard County and for the Space Coast to have the resources of a world-class medical school right here on campus,” he said.

Burrell College operates under a shared-services partnership with New Mexico State University. That’s where the medical school built an 80,000-square-foot building on the NMSU campus, adjacent to the football stadium. The Florida Tech partnership is tailored along similar lines.

“We will be able to utilize the library at Florida Tech through our relationship with Florida Tech. Student housing will be afforded. Student dining. The health center. And it’s really how you can collaborate, versus duplicate, resources,” Hummer said.

The Florida Tech-Burrell College medical school will occupy about 40,000 square feet inside L3Harris Commons, where renovations are underway to add classrooms, an anatomy lab, an osteopathic manipulative-medicine lab, and a clinical skills lab, said Dr. Bill Pieratt, Burrell College dean and chief academic officer. 

Pieratt said the clinical skills lab will feature “high-fidelity teaching mannequins.” Students will also learn skills using mock patients in various medical scenarios.

Nine Burrell College full-time faculty members will staff the Melbourne medical school, Pieratt said, while community physicians will teach on campus and in clinical environments. All told, about 50 faculty and support staffers from both institutions will work there.