Larkin Health Sciences Institute (LHSI) is a private not for profit educational institute that was developed out of a collaboration with Larkin Community Hospital (LCH) one of only twelve statutory teaching hospitals in Florida. LCH has over 30 accredited medical residency and fellowship programs as well as accredited residencies in dentistry, podiatry and pharmacy. LHSI will become a flagship university that will educate health care students for practice in many different health care fields.
LHSI began with its first College of Biomedical Sciences in 2013. The College currently offers a master’s degree in biomedical sciences and has been approved by the Florida Department of Education (DOE) to begin offering two additional master’s programs in Clinical Cellular and Molecular Biology, and Clinical Anatomy. The Master’s in Biomedical Sciences enrolls students three times each year (September, January and May). The Institute has also been approved to begin offering a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Clinical and Translational Research. As our new Dean for the College of Biomedical Sciences, Dr. Carol Brenner, takes control of the College September 1, she will begin to develop these newer programs. Dr. Brenner is an esteemed professor and researcher with over five million dollars of NIH support for her research in the biomedical sciences. She will bring approximately one-half million dollars of research equipment with her. Prior to joining LHSI, she has had administrative positions at Stony Brook University, part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. Prior to that she was at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM). She has also held faculty and research appointments at Wayne State University and the University of New Orleans.
The State of Florida DOE has also approved two Associate Degree programs that can be entered directly out of high school with no prerequisites. These include Diagnostic Medical Sonography and Radiologic Technology. These are both offered though one of the two new colleges, the College of Health Sciences. The Dean of this College is Dr. Zachary Lahlou. Dr. Lahlou has extensive teaching experience in a number of health science programs including the Physician Assistant program at Keiser University. The inaugural class in the Diagnostic Medical Sonography program will begin this September. For more information, contact the Dean directly at zlahlou@ULarkin.org.
The second new college is the College of Pharmacy which was approved by the Florida DOE to offer the Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree. The program is in the final steps of programmatic approval and is currently accepting applications for the inaugural class to begin in August 2016. The Dean of the College of Pharmacy, Dr. Gary M. Levin, has previous experience as the Founding Campus Dean of the LECOM School of Pharmacy in Bradenton, Florida. Prior to that he was an administrator at the Nova Southeastern University College of Pharmacy in Davie, Florida and was also tenured faculty and an administrator at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. For further information, please e-mail pharmacyadmissions@ularkin.org. The Larkin College of Pharmacy will be the first college of pharmacy in Miami-Dade County.
The College of Pharmacy will offer a unique program which will be the first year-round, three-year, block-program in the State of Florida. Although students will complete their Doctor of Pharmacy in three years (as opposed to the more traditional four years), because of the design of the curriculum, they will receive approximately 25% more contact time with faculty than most four-year programs. The block curriculum will eliminate traditional classes that may occur only several times a week, leaving much time unused. Instead, students will attend class from 9 AM – 4 PM Monday to Friday on most weeks. Additionally, students will learn in a block format so they can focus on one major topic at a time, not five or six different courses. Assessments will be scheduled every two weeks to determine what has been learned up to that point. Additionally, there will be several courses that will be taught longitudinally over the year in order to apply the knowledge that has been learned in each block. This type of applied learning as compared to primarily lecture style is more comfortable for many students and helps to retain knowledge better than memorization.
