What’s the future of kids’ healthcare in Miami? FIU and Nicklaus have a plan
A new treatment for cardiovascular disease in kids? Breakthrough in cancer care or for other chronic conditions?
More research and clinical trials to help treat rare and complex conditions in children will soon be underway as part of a new deal that turns Nicklaus Children’s Health System, which runs one of the state’s top children’s hospitals, into the official pediatric teaching hospital of Florida International University’s medical school.
The new partnership is expected to help recruit and retain top doctors, add more residency and fellowship programs, and expand research, technology and clinical trials to help treat rare and complex conditions, according to Nicklaus President and CEO Matthew Love and Dr. Juan Cendan, a surgeon who serves as FIU’s senior vice president for Health Affairs and dean of FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.
“What we’re going to see is this elevation of pediatric healthcare for the kids in our community,” Love told the Miami Herald in a phone interview, noting that academic medical centers tend to see better patient outcomes and that this collaboration will “create the first academic medical center for a specialty-licensed children’s hospital here in South Florida.”
Nicklaus is one of four specialty-licensed children’s hospitals in the state, which means the hospital system treats children with the most critical and complex diagnoses.
What the FIU-Nicklaus partnership means for South Florida
Besides improving patient care, leaders say the partnership will also bolster the healthcare workforce of South Florida as the country braces for a pediatric physician shortage of nearly 13,000 doctors by 2037. Communities with teaching hospitals usually see more doctors stay and practice in the state where they trained, rather than moving elsewhere.
Nicklaus Children’s sponsors the largest pediatric residency program in the southeastern United States. By partnering with FIU, Love is hoping the journey of South Florida medical students from textbooks to real-world experience in pediatrics will become more accessible.
Some faculty and medical residents from FIU’s medical college already help care for patients at Nicklaus Children’s facilities, including its main hospital near South Miami, considered one of the state’s top pediatric hospitals and the only freestanding pediatric hospital in South Florida.
But the collaboration between the two institutions is expected to increase under the new partnership, with Nicklaus specialists also joining FIU’s faculty, forming the largest academic pediatric department in the state, he said.
“You’re seeing the beginning of two anchoring institutions in the community” coming together to “recruit talent and bring new care, research and educational experiences that we have not been able to do before” Cendan told the Miami Herald Monday, ahead of a signing event on FIU’s main campus celebrating the official launch of the collaboration.
“The state of Florida has an aging physician population,” Cendan said. “We’ve got to do everything we can to make for the best teaching environment, to engage our students to have them want to stay in the state.”
Both leaders believe the new partnership will help lead to more complex pediatric care in South Florida for cardiovascular disease and other conditions.
The FIU-Nicklaus agreement is similar to the one FIU’s medical school made last year with Baptist Health, South Florida’s largest not-for-profit healthcare system and the university’s future teaching hospital. It’s also similar to the longstanding partnership Jackson Health System, Miami-Dade’s public hospital network, has with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Jackson is the teaching hospital for UHealth.
The deal cements a relationship that has been in place since FIU’s medical school opened more than a decade ago. As part of their third-year requirements, all medical students complete a pediatric clerkship at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, with about 120 students rotating through the hospital each year, according to the university. Nicklaus also has an ambulatory surgery center on the university’s West Miami-Dade campus that does almost 6,000 surgeries a year.
Expanding medical research
Nicklaus doctors work often with FIU researchers on clinical trials, including one that took blood samples of pediatric cancer patients and blasted their cancerous cells with more than 120 FDA-approved drugs to help figure out which treatment would be most effective to fight their aggressive conditions. The more personalized cancer treatment approach helped a South Florida 8-year-old become cancer free.
For FIU’s relatively young medical school, securing two teaching hospitals is a significant step for the school’s growth and ensuring its students gain the necessary experience needed to care for patients, according to Cendan. It also preps the university to go head-to-head with Jackson and UHealth’s academic health center, although Cendan said Miami has room for two academic health centers dedicated to understanding and treating disease.
“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,” FIU’s interim president Jeanette Nuñez said.
The FIU-Nicklaus agreement is set to span for at least 20 years, according to Cendan.
Nicklaus seeks to expand care in Miami
For Nicklaus Children’s, being FIU’s official pediatric teaching hospital helps deepen its footprint in South Florida at a time when health networks are trying to keep up with the region’s growth and are searching for pockets in the community where clusters of people live or are moving to that don’t have nearby medical access.
UHealth, for example, recently opened a medical hub in Doral, one of South Florida’s hottest medical markets. Miami Beach’s Mount Sinai Medical Center is building an ER and hospital complex in Westchester. And HCA Florida Healthcare has opened more than a dozen emergency rooms in the region.
The expansions are not just to improve access to care, one of several factors that can affect a person’s health. It’s also a chance to secure patients, reduce overcrowding at main locations, and prepare for the future.
Nicklaus provides care to nearly half a million pediatric patients a year, with more than a dozen outpatient and urgent care centers across the region. And it’s moving quickly to expand its presence in a region with several pediatric hospitals, including Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Broward County, Baptist Children’s Hospital and Holtz Children’s Hospital, one of the largest children’s hospitals in the Southeast United States and part of Miami-Dade’s public hospital system, Jackson Health.
Nicklaus last year struck a deal to become the pediatric provider for Broward Health’s children hospital. Broward Health is one of two public hospital systems in Broward County. Nicklaus specialists also provide pediatric emergency care at Baptist Hospital and Homestead Hospital in Miami-Dade County.
“Our vision really is to create this nationally recognized academic pediatric healthcare system” and the partnership with FIU is “a foundational step,” Love said. “That way kids don’t have to leave Florida for care.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2025 at 9:47 AM.
