The Florida State University College of Medicine and Sarasota Memorial Health Care System last week received approval to launch a new emergency medicine residency program to meet health care and physician workforce needs in Sarasota and surrounding communities. The program is intended to draw recently graduated medical students to complete their specialty emergency training in Sarasota, with the hope that they will remain in the area after completing the program. The state’s physician workforce report shows that the region that includes Sarasota, Lee, Collier, Charlotte, DeSoto, Glades and Hendry counties has a shortage of primary care physicians.