[dbussone]

Originally Posted by Bizdoc

The quality of doctors is generally going up. However, there are still some docs around who came when TV was still small and could not support docs from the major leagues.

That having been said, The Villages hospital is a nice small community hospital It will *never* be a major medical center. Even if we hit 200,000 population at build out, we still won't have the population to support a 1,000 bed major medical center.

As to the availability of specialty care, you can find some here. You can find more in Gainesville, Tampa, and Orlando. Probably 90% of your potential needs can be accomodated.

None of the medical schools is Florida is in the top tier of medical schools. This means that for the super duper gee whiz stuff like a whole body transplant, you'll have to go to someplace like NY, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, LA, Dallas/Austin and other places in Texas or Raleigh-Durham. Before you rush to move to one of those cities, consider just how likely you are to need that level of care. Is it high enough to deal with Boston winters?

What is your definition of upper tier? There are numerous ways to rank medical schools (e.g. NIH research grant $, MCAT scores, medical student rankings, teaching hospital affiliations, etc). I'm from Boston but I can find anything needed medically at an appropriate level of quality here in FL. All you have to do is do your research.