The UCF College of Medicine and HCA Florida Healthcare today announced two new graduate medical education (GME) programs – a new Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Fellowship at HCA Florida Ocala Hospital and new Transitional Year Residency Program at HCA Florida Capital Hospital in Tallahassee. The pulmonary critical care fellowship is the consortium’s first and only the second such program in the region.
The UCF-HCA Florida Healthcare GME Consortium is the fastest growing residency and fellowship training program in Florida, designed to address the state’s physician shortage. By June, it will be training more than 820 physicians in 49 accredited programs across Florida that have graduated almost 1,300 physicians. About 50 percent of those graduates stay in Florida to practice.
Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine
The program is expected to welcome its first class of three fellows in July 2026 and will train a total of nine fellows at full capacity over its three-year curriculum.
It will provide comprehensive, hands-on training in the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic respiratory disease, critical illness and complex ICU management.
Based primarily at HCA Florida Ocala Hospital, fellows will also train at HCA Florida West Marion Hospital, Ocala Lung & Critical Care clinics, Select Specialty Hospital – The Villages, HCA Florida North Florida Hospital and several regional specialty practices, offering broad exposure across inpatient, outpatient and subspecialty pulmonary medicine settings.
Pulmonary and critical care physicians are increasingly essential as Florida’s population grows and ages, particularly in regions experiencing rapid expansion such as Marion County and surrounding communities. This fellowship is designed to strengthen the physician workforce pipeline and improve long-term access to advanced respiratory and critical care services in Central Florida.
“The program will focus on training fellows in the compassionate care of the sickest patients requiring intensive care level support, ventilators, shock, and those with other pulmonary diseases. Having these additional physicians available at HCA Florida Ocala Hospital will improve access and improve care, which, in turn, will save lives,” said Dr. Stephen Cico, the College of Medicine’s Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and the GME program’s designated institutional official.
The fellowship will be led by Program Director Dr. Raj G. Karunakara, a board-certified specialist in critical care medicine, pulmonary disease, sleep medicine, internal medicine, and neurocritical care. “Ocala is one of the fastest-growing communities in the nation and we need to meet the rising demands for lung health and ICU services,” he said. “Physicians involved in the program, having witnessed this growth firsthand. We are committed to training highly skilled, clinically competent pulmonary critical care physicians who are firmly grounded in ethical and moral principles to serve the community.”
Transitional Year Residency
Specialties such as dermatology, anesthesiology and physical medicine and rehabilitation require residents to do a transitional year of training that emphasizes inpatient medicine, ambulatory care, emergency medicine, critical care, surgery and elective specialty experiences tailored to each resident’s future field of practice.
The program is expected to welcome its first class of 15 residents in July 2026 and is actively interviewing for the incoming cohort.
This new residency expands graduate medical education opportunities in North Florida and strengthens the UCF/HCA Florida Healthcare’s commitment to developing highly skilled, adaptable physicians prepared to enter specialized residency pathways.
“The launch of the Transitional Year Residency Program represents and exciting step forward in the continued growth of graduate medical education at our institution,” said Dr. Sarah Vocelle, program director. “We are building a program that prepares physicians to lead, innovate and deliver exceptional care across a wide range of specialties.”