College of Medicine

Andrew Kozel received the 2022 President’s Award from the Clinical Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Society, whose members are dedicated to optimizing clinical practice, awareness, and accessibility of transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy.

Sylvie Naar will be formally inducted into the academy in November, joining 13 other researchers admitted this year, which bumps the group’s membership to more than 200.

Dr. Sylvie Naar, director of the Florida State University Center for Translational Behavioral Science, has received a grant from the NIH to promote evidence-based diagnose and prevention counseling testing and referral services (CTR) for young men who have sex with men (YMSM).

”The average person should understand that right now at this moment they are at very low risk,” Dr. George Rust with FSU Medicine said.

Dr. Sylie Naar, part of Florida State University's Center for Translational Behavioral Science, has received a four-year grant totaling to almost $1 million.

We would like to congratulate her, Ms. Miaisha Mitchell, and the Leon County Emergency Medical Services on the honor, and thank them for their services to our community!

Drs. Yolany Hyde and George Rust each received a 2022 Leadership Award at the recent Student Organizations and Involvement Awards Ceremony.

Dr. Yolany M. Hyde will serve of the Southwest Council of Latin American Studies (SCOLAS) for 2022 - 2024.

Heather Flynn, professor and chair of the College of Medicine’s Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine, has been appointed to the Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse.

A five-year grant, awarded by NIH’s National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, will fund research designed to reduce the spread of HIV among young adults.

Professor Angela Sutin, Ph.D. is part of a multidisciplinary collaboration on a recently awarded $2.25 million NIH grant. The Principal Investigator is Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology Claire Berryman.

FSU College of Medicine Distinguished Endowed Professor Sylvie Naar is principal investigator for the five-year grant, along with Assistant Vice President for Research and Academic Affairs Norman Anderson and College of Social Work Associate Professor Carrie Pettus.

The FSU Behavioral Health at Apalachee Center clinic is the first of its kind in the state and helps provide mental health services to anyone in the community.

Free Facebook Live Workshop, Thursday August 26, 2021 at 7PM Est.

Heather Flynn, Ph.D. Professor for the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine has been selected as Chair effective September 1, 2021.

Dr. Heather Flynn, Interim Chair of the Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine (BSSM) department at the FSU College of Medicine announced the inaugural Community Rounds event scheduled for August 4, 2021 from 12 to 1PM. The event is "Behavioral and Social Aspects of Vaccine Hesitancy: Community Challenges and Successes".

Joseph Gabriel, Ph.D., was recently appointed to the editorial board of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine beginning in January, 2022. It is a leading journal in its field for more than three quarters of a century.

Dr. Heather Flynn, professor and interim chair of the the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine is president-elect for the International Society of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (ISIPT).

Hear a panel discussion on this topic during a free Facebook Live event, Thursday, April 8th from 7-8:15 PM/EST. 

With the new year, the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine (BSSM) welcomes Dr. Heather Flynn, PhD in her new role as Interim Chair.

Dr. Julie Sheffler with the Center for Translational Behavioral Science (CTBS) and Ms. Ute Horn, Executive Assistant to the department chair were recognized for outstanding contributions to the College for 2019-20 at the Faculty Council Executive Committee Faculty/Staff Awards ceremony.

Michael Nair-Collins,, Ph.D., a bioethicist and associate professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine, today is a prominent national voice in any conversation about brain death. He recently accepted an invitation confirming as much, joining the Uniform Law Commission Study Group to Examine the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA), established in 1981.

Hear Wendy Barber, M.S., highly esteemed health coach and dementia care advocate, discuss this topic during a free Facebook Live event, December 10, 2020 from 7-8:15PM. 

Nicole Ennis received a $356,000 grant to assess the effect of medical marijuana on response time, attention, and executive functions in people 50 and older.

Frank "Andy" Kozel will serve as co-director of the FSU Mood and Anxiety Center of Excellence, and as medical director of FSU BehavioralHealth at Apalachee Center.

Comments from Les Beitsch, chair of the Department of Behavioral Science and Social Medicine, were included in a recent Associated Press article about Florida's public health system and its impact on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, department chair Les Beitsch is one of the 15 panelists advising the ACC as the conference contemplates potential health and safety concerns of having a college football season.

“There has been a lot of worry that loneliness would increase dramatically because of the social distancing guidelines and restrictions,” said lead author Martina Luchetti, an assistant professor at the College of Medicine. “Contrary to this fear, we found that overall loneliness did not increase. Instead, people felt more supported by others than before the pandemic. Even while physically isolated, the feeling of increased social support and of being in this together may help limit increases in loneliness.”

The paper is part of a larger study College of Medicine researchers are doing on COVID-19 to look at changes in mental health during the COVID-19 crisis and how psychological factors contribute to various aspects of response to the pandemic.

The College of Medicine has named Frank “Andy” Kozel the Mina Jo Powell Endowed Chair in Neurological Sciences. Kozel also will serve as a professor of psychiatry in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine at the College of Medicine.

In spite of COVID-19 travel restrictions, Dr. Leslie Beitch held audience with our Canadian friends to the north when he was interviewed June 26, 2020 by guest host Greg Brady on the Bill Kelly Show.

During the third week in June, Florida saw a record setting spike in daily reported new cases. This had many asking how bad can the resurgence become as the state continues its phased reopening, and what is the threshold for a hard stop, if any? Les Beitsch, Ph.D., J.D. and Chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine at the FSU College of Medicine, pondered this question and more in a South Florida Sun Sentinel article and a Tallahassee Democrat editorial.

Dr. George Rust, clinician, professor and Director of the Center for Medicine and Public Health, was asked recently for comment on a newly proposed task force that would inform Florida's reopening during the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) announced its COVID-19 Medical Advisory Group, which includes one representative from each of its 15 institutions, including Dr. Leslie Beitsch, the chair of Behavioral Sciences & Social Medicine at Florida State.

While, “no sane person feels good during a global disaster,” during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are coping techniques that confer protective factors, offered Drs. Heather Flynn and Scott Pickett, two clinical psychologists in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine at the FSU College of Medicine.

As the magnitude of the coronvirus outbreak came into focus, the media has reached out to experts in public health to gain a perspective on the appropriate response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Leslie Beitsch, professor and chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine (BSSM), and others have offered valuable perspectives.

Dr. George Rust, Professor at the FSU College of Medicine, Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Director of FSU's Center for Medicine and Public Health, shares his experience and perspective on the COVID-19 epidemic as one of four doctors interviewed by the Tallahassee Democrat.

Dr. Rust's Mentee, Charles Fleischer MD who is an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Rural Health, was awarded a $20,000 First-Year Assistant Professor Grant from the FSU Council on Research and Creativity.

TCC's President Murdaugh has agreed to designate three acres of land on the southwest edge of the TCC campus as the museum's home site

Leon County is set to become only the second county in Florida with a clean needle exchange program intended to reduce the transmittal of blood-borne infections and promote drug treatment. Dr. Leslie Beitsch testified before the County Commissioners that needle exchange programs lower the likelihood of prolonged addiction because of the integration of referral programs. Dr. Beitsch is a Professor and Chair for the FSU College of Medicine, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine.

In an article for the Tallahassee Democrat, Tomeka Norton-Brown, project coordinator for ACTS 2 wrote, "Caregivers are some of the strongest people I know. They’re dedicated, reliable and selfless. In my line of work, we also know that selflessness – though admirable – can be harmful to your health." Her article was written in recognition of National Family Caregivers Month.

Dr. Leslie Beitsch, Professor and Chair of the FSU College of Medicine, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine co-authored an article that was selected as one of four papers of the year published by the American Journal of Public Health.

College of Medicine researchers Samantha Goldfarb, Gregg Stanwood, Heather Flynn and Devon Graham shared insights from biomedical, clinical and policy perspectives on opioid abuse during pregnancy.

The College of Medicine’s ‘What if?’ questions could help Florida communities tackle cancer disparities.

Heather Flynn, professor and vice-chair at the FSU College of Medicine was recently appointed to the statewide Opioid Taskforce.

Dr. Yolany Martinez Hyde, assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine is the first woman to win the National Poetry Prize at the Los Confines International Poetry Festival. Dr. Martinez Hyde teaches medical spanish at the FSU College of Medicine.

Carolyn Blue, Senior Administrative Assistant in the Center for Translational Behavioral Science received 2019 Outstanding Mentor Award from the Tallahassee Future Leaders Academy. The TFLA program is sponsored by the City of Tallahassee, which partners with area organizations, businesses and colleges to provide summer jobs for more than 200 local youth, ages 15-19. The program is devoted to providing community high school students with mentorship, work experience and professional development.

With an $800,000 grant, George Rust seeks to help Florida communities find out why specific cancer disparities exist — and then encourage them to do something about it.

Les Beitsch and Associate Professor of Geography Christopher Uejio will partner with researchers from Tulane University to examine how infrastructure damage and exposure to carbon monoxide may have increased stress and trauma and decreased access to health care.

Dr. Pascal Jean-Pierre received a $48,000 grant from the FSU MRI Oversight Committee in March and a second award of $13,000 from the Council on Research and Creativity in May for a complementary study on Type 2 diabetes and neurocognitive dysfunction.

Dr. Joseph Gabriel of the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, along with Dr. Matthew Crawford of Kent State University collaborated to produce an important new work on pharmacopoeias—official lists of medicaments and medicinal preparations published by municipal, national, or imperial governments—organized the world of healing goods in the early modern Atlantic World. These lists gave rise to new and valuable medical commodities such as cinchona bark, guaiacum, and ipecac.

Javier Rosado and Tatiana Fernandez wrote a children's e-book focused on stressors children from migrant families face.

First-year students from the Florida State University College of Medicine will board buses this Friday and fan out across North Florida and southwest Georgia to explore rural health care.

The African-American Alzheimer's Caregiver Training Conference is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 29 at the Old West Enrichment Center in Tallahassee. The free Saturday conference will include presentations, breakout groups, and caregiver and community resource panel discussions.

Dr. Julia Sheffler was awarded $50,000 through the Clinical Translational Science Award (NIH Award Number UL1TR001427) for her project, "Early phase feasibility trial: Examining the effects of diet on genetic and psychosocial risks for Alzheimer’s disease.”

Celina Meyer, a DIS undergraduate student in the Center for Translational Behavioral Science (CTBScience) was awarded a 2019 Garnet and Gold Scholar Society IDEA Grant.

Most people are familiar with the term “brain dead” and its implications for taking a person off life support or for organ donation. Fewer people know the history and current controversies behind the legal and medical definition of brain death.

On February 13, 2019 Visiting Scholar Dr. Piotr Nowak presented the lecture, “The Death of an Organism vs. Death as an Irreversible Loss of a Human’s Moral Status”.

A recent study by Associate Professor Angelina Sutin has determined that loneliness has a connection to an increased risk of dementia in older adults over the age of 50.

Patricia Babcock, who served as co-director of the College of Medicine’s Center for Behavioral Health Integration since 2016, has been named deputy secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families.

It’s one of the nagging questions of our time: Why is medicine so expensive? In fact, that’s the headline for an essay in the Feb. 21 New York Review of Books in which Associate Professor Joseph Gabriel figures prominently.

Research conducted by Angelina Sutin and Antonio Terracciano suggests that specific aspects of an individual's personality is directly related to their beliefs about others' bodies and the way that's expressed in social interactions.

Angelina Sutin received a $3.8 million grant from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. For the next five years, she’ll be studying midlife cognitive aging in Latinos, looking for predictors and mechanisms of decline.

A new grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration aims to improve maternal mental health outcomes by increasing screening rates and patient access to treatment and resources. For the next five years, Dr. Flynn will work with the FDOH and Florida Maternal Mental Health Collaborative to improve perinatal depression detection, treatment, engagement and outcomes.

Dr. Patricia Babcock's work this past Spring with the Florida Department of Children and Families' child protective services investigators is featured in the Fall 2018 FSUMED Magazine.

A new Florida State University College of Medicine study involving data from 12,000 participants collected over 10 years confirms the heavy toll that loneliness can take on your health: It increases your risk of dementia by 40 percent.

A New York Times article sites Dr. Sutin's research.

Dr. Rust has taken over the Center for Medicine and Public Health from its Founding Director, Dr. Les Beitsch.

Support the African-American Alzheimer’s Caregiver Training program!