The College of Medicine's Fort Pierce Regional Campus gathered its faculty members, staff and students for a night of appreciation and academic updates. Select students and faculty members received scholarships and awards.

The inaugural class of students at the FSU College of Medicine's School of Physician Assistant Practice is nearing its December graduation. The class is finishing the first-ever PA clinical rotations at the College of Medicine's six regional campuses.

This past week, Dance Marathon at Florida State University hosted its annual Miracle Week, a week of events working to create awareness of hte organization's cause and fundraise on behalf of their Miracle Families. Dance Marathon's fundraising efforts benefit the FSU College of Medicine's pediatric outreach programs and Shands Children's Hospital.

Florida's state universities, nonprofit labs and for-profit startups netted $693 million from the National Institutes of Health during the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. That mark eclipsed the previous record of $650 million, set in 2017, according to a Palm Beach Post analysis of NIH data. The article, posted in the Palm Beach Post, highlights UF and FSU's partnership on a $29 million award from the NIH's Clinical and Translational Science Awards program, a project that aims to speed the delivery of medical advances to patients.

Choogon Lee, an associate professor at the FSU College of Medicine, has embarked on a four-year project to uncover molecular secrets about human circadian sleep disorders. He has received a $1.2 million grant from the NIH to aid his research.

College of Medicine alumnus Myron Rolle (M.D. '17) put his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital on a brief hold to join an emergency response by International Medical Corps in the Bahamas to care for survivors of Hurricane Dorian.

New research suggests having a pet can help ease the pain of losing a loved one. Having a dog or cat at home was linked to an easing of loneliness and depression. Geriatrics Professor Alice Pomidor was not involved in the study but commented on the results.

The Capital Medical Society (CMS) Foundation awarded scholarships to 10 students in their first or second year of medical school at the Florida State University College of Medicine and third and fourth year medical students at the Tallahassee Regional Campus of FSU College of Medicine on the basis of financial need.

A new mom on Reddit recently shared her frustration with a relative who criticized her for drinking coffee while breastfeeding. Experts weighed in on the issue and while traces of caffeine have been found in breast milk, the amount that’s passed along to your baby is usually too small to have any negative effects, says lactation consultant Joan Younger Meek, professor of clinical sciences at the FSU College of Medicine.

Florida State University, partnered with the University of Florida, received a grant of $29 million which will be used to further develop community-based health research. The grant, which is called the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA), will allow FSU and UF to share resources and tackle issues such as mental health, maternal health, and child stress.

At a September ceremony at the College of Medicine's Sarasota Regional Campus, Dean John P. Fogarty recognized the contributions of clinical faculty members. Kathleen Kennedy received the Outstanding Community Faculty Educator Award and Vien Dinh received the Guardian of the Mission Award.

During a presentation at the American Medical Association interim meeting last year, John P. Fogarty, dean of the FSU College of Medicine, shared the outpouring of grief following a medical student's suicide and outlined the FSU Wellness Committee's efforts to create a culture that promotes wellness for students.

From developing new drugs to combat illnesses to conducting mental health studies to studying advancements in HIV treatment, research faculty at Florida State University are immersed in addressing health concerns of Floridians. Those ongoing efforts now will get a boost as the result of a $29 million grant for a University of Florida and Florida State University partnership by the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program.

College of Medicine alumnus James E. Pilkington (M.D., '14) returned to his hometown of Lake Wales this summer to practice urology. His return to his hometown is important to the community. Recruiting urologists has been a frequent need in Polk County and urology is one of four surgical specialties in which a 2016 workforce analysis predicts the greatest shortages in 2025.

Florida State University students, faculty, staff and administrators gathered for a spirited cultural celebration of the Latinx community Tuesday, Sept. 17, in Ruby Diamond Concert Hall. Among other Florida State highlights, Miguel Hernandez, interim director of the Center for Leadership and Social Change, said, "Come celebrate with me the fact that our College of Medicine has been recognized for its excellence in diversity and has also ranked in the top 10 for its enrollment of Hispanic students, producing doctors for our community."

Myron Rolle, former Florida State football star, College of Medicine alumnus and third-year neurosurgery resident at Massachusetts General Hospital — arrived in the Bahamas last Wednesday to provide support of residents impacted by Hurricane Dorian. He is a team member of the MGH Center for Global Health Office of Global Disaster Response.

Myron Rolle, former FSU football star, neurosurgery resident and 2017 College of Medicine graduate, is a team member of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health Office of Global Disaster Response. The 10-person team was scheduled to arrive in the Bahamas on Wednesday to support residents affected by Hurricane Dorian.

Sabal Palm Elementary officially became Tallahassee's first community partnership school on Tuesday. The Leon County School District; the Florida A&M College of Education; FSU PrimaryHealth and the Children's Home Society of Florida made a 25-year commitment to school. The partners work together to provide a community school with a wide variety of academic support and enrichment opportunities as well as medical care for the students, the students’ families and the surrounding community.

On Wednesday afternoon, Dance Marathon organizers were on hand to present the College of Medicine with a check for more than $1 million. Earlier this year, more than 1,800 students at FSU participated Dance Marathon and raised a record $2.21 million for UF Health Shands Children's Hospital and the FSU College of Medicine's Pediatric Outreach Programs.

A team of FSU researchers including College of Medicine Professor Antonio Terracciano has received a $2.9 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to identify new ways to detect and treat age-related cognitive decline and dementia.

Alma Littles, Yolany Hyde, Antonio Terracciano, Tim Megraw and Robert Tomko were included in FSU's August 2019 Faculty and Staff Briefs recognizing honors, awards, bylines, grants, service, and other notable achievements.

The Bridge Program recently received a 2019 Inspiring Programs in STEM Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. The award goes annually to “programs that encourage and inspire a new generation of young people to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and math.” The college, along with 49 other recipients, will be featured in the September 2019 issue of the magazine.

Alma Littles, the FSU College of Medicine's chief academic officer, was honored in July with a national award named after the first woman to graduate from medical school in the U.S. The American Medical Women's Association presented the Elizabeth Blackwell Award to Littles, which is given annually to the woman physician who has made the most outstanding contribution to the cause of women in the field of medicine.

Click here to read the article from WTXL.

For the past four years, FSU has participated in the Tallahassee Future Leaders Academy (TFLA) to provide local teens with a summer employment experience. Carolyn Blue, a senior administrative specialist at the College of Medicine was selected as one of four recipients of this year's TFLA Outstanding Mentor Award.

The University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute, in partnership with Florida State University, has been awarded $29 million to speed research discoveries that will lead to improved health for people living in the nation’s third-largest state.

UF and FSU will expand their research partnership with the five-year award, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program.

The UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute, in partnership with Florida State University and the College of Medicine, has been awarded $29 million to speed research discoveries that will lead to improved health for people living in the nation's third-largest state.

The University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute, in partnership with Florida State University, has been awarded $29 million to speed research discoveries that will lead to improved health for people living in the nation’s third-largest state.

With a $3.75 million grant from HRSA, the Department of Geriatrics at the College of Medicine will help shape the future of health care in Florida by developing geriatrics training and resources for a wide range of health-care professionals.

With a $3.75 million grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Department of Geriatrics at the Florida State University College of Medicine will help shape the future of health care in Florida.

Backed by a three-year Bankhead-Coley research grant from the Florida Department of Health totaling more than $800,000, College of Medicine Professor George Rust is working to tackle cancer disparities in Florida.

In a recent article from the Tallahassee Democrat, College of Medicine alumna and family medicine physician Laura Davis (M.D. '13) talks about practicing medicine in the tight-knit town of Blountstown where the "wounds from Hurricane Michael nine months ago are still raw."

Gary Ostrander, vice president for research at Florida State University, wrote an op-ed for the Tallahassee Democrat about how FSU's research endeavors have a profound impact on the Tallahassee community and state. Ostrander specifically mentioned College of Medicine Professor Michael Blaber's work. With funding from the NIH, Blaber has developed an artificial human protein for stimulating cell growth that could provide relief for an incurable eye condition called Fuchs' Dystrophy.

Social services organizations say that as of Thursday, July 17, they have heard of no residents in the migrant community of Immokalee being arrested during publicized operations planned in major cities across the U.S. Javier Rosado, a psychologist and director of clinical research at the FSU College of Medicine's Center for Child Stress and Health in Immokalee, said the stress and fear of arrests and worrying about family separation impacts children's abilities to learn and succeed.

Lee Health has retained 20 of 24 doctors in Southwest Florida with its family medicine residency program. To attract more doctors to the growing region, the hospital system is collaborating with the FSU College of Medicine to create an internal medicine residency program that hopes to duplicate the same success.

Researchers at FSU received a record $233.6 million in funding for fiscal year 2019.

FSU researchers received a record level of funding from federal, state and private sources in the 2019 fiscal year, bringing in $233.6 million to the university to support investigations into areas such as health sciences, high energy physics and marine biology. This is a $7 million increase over the prior fiscal year.

Trefoil Therapeutics, a private biotechnology company, raised $28 million to develop novel engineered fibroblast growth factor-1 proteins as a therapy to treat serious corneal endothelial diseases and epithelial disorders. The technology underlying Trefoil’s platform was developed by co-founder Michael Blaber, Ph.D., and is licensed from Florida State University. 

Lee Health recently celebrated the graduation of the Class of 2019 of the Florida State University College of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program, which includes eight doctors.

The impact of Hurricane Michael on child births in the Florida Panhandle will be studied by two FSU professors including FSU College of Medicine Chair of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine Les Beitsch. The study will be led by a team from Tulane University.

A pipeline scholarship program from the American Academy of Neurology brought medical students, including second-year FSU med student Christy Soares, to their first AAN Annual Meeting, and it confirmed their resolve to pursue neurology.

FSU faculty members led an effort at the FSU Innovation Hub to show local business, government and education professionals how to use an effective and creative problem-solving process called "Design Thinking" during FSU's "Design Thinking Deep Drive" in July. Research faculty member Emily Pritchard was in attendance and commented on the structure of the event.

FSU has launched a new online curriculum for a professional certification in trauma and resilience. Joedrecka Brown Speights at the College of Medicine said, “It’s important for human services professionals to keep up with the new research on brain development so they remember there is always hope for healing after trauma.”

Les Beitsch, chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine at the College of Medicine, is part of a study examining how Hurricane Michael impacted birth outcomes in the Florida Panhandle as a result of infrastructure damage and exposure to carbon monoxide.

FSU College of Medicine Chair of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine 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.

Two FSU professors - including the College of Medicine's Les Beitsch - have received $400,000 to examine how Hurricane Michael impacted birth outcomes in the Florida Panhandle as a result of infrastructure damage and exposure to carbon monoxide.

Operation Tobacco Free Marine is a Marine Corps sponsored tobacco cessation program designed to help members of the Marine Corps quit tobacco completely. The curriculum is an evidence-based intervention program with collaborations from the FSU College of Medicine's Tobacco Treatment Specialist Program and the Smoking Cessation Clinic for the Tampa Veterans' Affairs Medical Center.

Finding a doctor with specialty certification in geriatrics, or one whose primary interest is in elderly patients, isn't easy in Polk County. At Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center, Polk's largest hospital, four were listed under geriatrics, and this problem isn't limited to Polk County. The workforce is ill-equipped to meet the demands of our aging society, said Lisa Granville, professor and associate chair of the Department of Geriatrics at the College of Medicine. In response, grants from the GWEP program enable the College of Medicine to boost geriatrics training, including in its medical residency programs.

For each of the past 12 years, the College of Medicine has hosted rising high school juniors and seniors from the Summer Institute, a weeklong "mini med school" experience meant to encourage students from diverse backgrounds to consider a career in medicine. More than 600 students have participated over the years and many are now attending medical school, including second-year med student Lisa Fusco.

An editorial in the Tallahassee Democrat lists FSU PrimaryHealth as one of three "upbeat, encouraging developments in our community."