College of Medicine

By Patrick Crowley
FSU College of Medicine

It’s competitive — recruiting top-notch educators, clinicians and researchers to a university, particularly those whose field of expertise is in high demand. The stars aligned perfectly at the Florida State University College of Medicine, resulting in the addition of William Bobo, M.D., MPH, to its faculty. Prior to coming to FSU, Bobo served as chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, as well as co-director for the Center for Individualized Medicine in Florida, at Mayo Clinic Florida, based in Jacksonville. 

“My ideal career is involvement in at least three areas,” Bobo said. “First, clinically, to remain involved and to keep my axe sharp — which is priority number one. Second is I am an educator. My parents were both college professors, so I am a teacher at heart, and I always have been. In the past, research and administrative duties took me away from teaching. This move to FSU has represented a very enticing opportunity to get back into teaching — both at the bedside and the lecture hall.

“And third, I am hoping to combine my clinical and research interests to help build something excellent and widely recognized, both at the regional and national levels.”

A foundational underpinning of faculty recruitment at Florida State is ASPIRE, the strategic research plan for the university that fosters a culture of research excellence.

“ASPIRE guides us in our decision-making process,” said Stacey Patterson, Ph.D., FSU vice president for Research. “From retaining and recruiting high-quality faculty like Dr. Bobo, to increasing research support and creating opportunities for researchers to work together and develop impactful solutions, all are part and parcel of ASPIRE.” 

Bobo said the mission of the College of Medicine was also a big draw for him, as it reminds him of where he received his medical degree in Missouri.  

“The University of Missouri, Columbia, is a rurally situated medical school within a large university community,” he said. “It has as its focus primary care, service to rural and underserved persons, just like FSU. The implication of that for me, personally, was an incredibly rich educational experience that proved to be foundational for the rest of my career.”  

Of course, who you know and the caliber of existing faculty at an institution can also be a big draw for attracting top talent. Bobo said Heather Flynn, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine, proved to be pivotal in his decision to leave Mayo, a place where, admittedly, he was very happy. Both he and Flynn worked together on several collaborations for the National Network of Depression Centers. 

“We started to discuss what she wanted to build at FSU and what was possible,” Bobo said. “This aligned with the things that I always wanted to build myself. It struck me as such a good opportunity because of a clear convergence of interests. And, through our discussion, we began to talk in more detail and those details were very appealing. I made a very difficult decision to leave a place where I was very, very happy and move two and a half hours west to Tallahassee.”

“We work hard to not only recruit outstanding faculty, but retain them and provide the tools they need to be successful in their work — all for the benefit of our students, patients and, in reality, all of us through new treatments and discoveries made by the groundbreaking research being done here,” said Dean Alma Littles, M.D.   

Now settling into life at FSU as a professor of psychiatry in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine, Bobo is teaching, conducting research focused on mood disorders, and seeing patients at FSU BehavioralHealth™ (behavioralhealth.fsu.edu). He says he is looking forward to growing his role even further. 

“My first priority is to be a good citizen and be of value to this department, to the college of medicine and the broader FSU community,” Bobo said. “I’m currently teaching Evidenced-based Psychological Treatments to fourth-year medical students. I am hoping to submit applications for new courses and integrate into existing courses and blocks of instruction wherever I’m welcome and wherever people think I can be helpful.”

Flynn said she is excited about adding Bobo’s unique expertise and enthusiasm to the department and stated, “As we continue to recruit outstanding faculty like Dr. Bobo who will focus on our priorities of teaching students, caring for patients and conducting research in an integrated fashion, we will undoubtedly have a tremendous, positive impact on patient care, new therapies and novel solutions to some of our nation’s most pressing health issues.” 

Meanwhile, Bobo continues his clinical practice and his grant-funded research focused on predicting the clinical effect of treatments for severe mood disorders, as well as integrating machine learning and asynchronous study designs to examine complex mood disorder phenotypes and correlated states, such as professional burnout in health care workers. He will soon launch the FSU Mood and Anxiety Center of Excellence, part of the National Network of Depression Centers (nndc.org). This will coalesce advances in patient care, training and research at FSU and nationally, similar to the National Cancer Center model.

“I’ve worked at very good health care institutions that are values-driven; people talk about the values, they weave the values into every decision that’s made, from administrative to the clinic. I’ve been blessed to be a part of that,” Bobo said. “FSU is one of those institutions where the way that policy is discussed, the way that patient care is discussed and the way research is planned — it’s consistent with our mission and that’s pretty inspiring, particularly if you care about being attached to things that are greater than yourself.

”That’s important to me.”