PERSPECTIVES 25th Anniversary - Fall-Winter 2018

Dr. Pallavi Patel College of Health Care Sciences 5 (continued on next page) Health Professions Division of Nova Southeastern Univer- sity, and the College of Allied Health was created. The Physician Assistant (PA) Program was the first pro- gram of the College of Allied Health to open in 1993, followed by the Occupational Therapy Program and the Physical Therapy Program in 1994. The College of Allied Health was initially housed in the old physical therapy department in North Miami Beach. As the number of faculty members grew, physical therapy moved to the old pharmacy space and then to the old pediatric wing, which had been converted into office space for physical and occupational therapy. The PA Program faculty members stayed in the old physical therapy department. At that point in the college’s history, faculty members brought their own Also occurring in the 1960s was the birth of Osteopathic General Hospital, which ultimately became Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine. In 1953, Morton Terry, D.O., M.Sc., FACOI, founded Biscayne Osteopathic General Hospital, a 100-bed general community hospital. This privately owned hospital relocated to North Miami Beach in 1960 and was renamed Osteopathic General Hospital. As osteopathic medicine gained a foothold in health care, Terry envisioned the day he could establish an osteopathic medical school in Florida. He accom- plished this goal in 1979 when Osteopathic General Hospital was converted into Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine (SECOM)—the only osteopathic medical school located in the southeastern United States at the time. The next step for SECOM was to add a college of pharmacy, followed by a college of optometry. By 1989, when Southeastern College of Optometry admitted its charter class, the three colleges were accorded university status, prompting the adoption of a new name: Southeastern University of the Health Sciences. Terry eventually came to believe that South- eastern University probably could not grow further without an affiliation with an estab- lished university, so in late 1989, he met with the dean of the University of Miami School of Medicine. However, the two universities did not reach an agreement. So, he contacted Nova University. Formal discussions for a merger between Nova Univer- sity and Southeastern University of the Health Sciences began in April 1993. The formal merger agreement was signed on September 27, 1993, and the merger took place on January 1, 1994, when Nova Southeastern University was born. The medical programs became the computers from home to their offices, as the university did not provide computers for any of the colleges. In 1996, the College of Allied Health moved from North Miami Beach to its current location on the Fort Lauderdale/Davie Campus. Today, the college also has programs in Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach, Tampa, and the United Kingdom. In front, middle, fourth from left, Richard E. Davis and Raul R. Cuadrado are surrounded by College of Allied Health faculty members.