By Audrey Post
FSU College of Medicine

Almost half of the M.D. Class of 2026 at the Florida State University College of Medicine will be staying in Florida for their residencies, the next step of their medical education that culminates in board certification in their chosen specialty and a license to practice medicine.

Of the 115 students who participated in the National Resident Matching Program, the primary system matching applicants to residency programs with available positions at U.S. teaching hospitals, 55 (47%) matched in Florida. 

“Having almost half of our class stay in Florida bodes well for the future as Florida faces a serious physician shortage,” College of Medicine Dean Alma B. Littles, M.D., said. “Research has shown that almost half of all physicians establish their practices within 50 miles of where they completed their residencies.”

Littles herself is evidence of the trend. The Gadsden County native completed a family medicine residency at what is now Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare in 1989 and opened her practice in her home county the same year.

A little over 31%, 39 students, matched in another state in the Southeast, either Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia or West Virginia. When combined, 94 of the 115, or almost 81%, are staying in the Southeast.

In addition, four students headed for military service – two in the Air Force and one each in the Army and Navy – matched with military hospitals, and one matched in urology through a specialty match administered by the American Urological Association. One student deferred participating in the match to complete a research year. 

Almost one-quarter of the 120 students (23%) who participated in one of the match programs, 28 students, did so in internal medicine. Psychiatry was second with 15 (12%); pediatrics and surgery, both general and preliminary, each had 13 matches (11%), while family medicine had 12 matches (10%). Obstetrics and gynecology, orthopedic surgery, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and diagnostic radiology each had four matches (3%).

Transitional programs, otolaryngology, dermatology, child neurology, internal medicine/psychiatry, radiation oncology and urology all had three or fewer matches.

The number of students who matched in primary care specialties, excluding obstetrics and gynecology, was 54 (47%). If ob/gyn is included, the number rises to 59 (51%). Currently, the Association of American Colleges does not count ob/gyn as a primary care specialty, which many medical educators think it should..

The annual residency match, conducted by the National Resident Matching Program, is the primary system matching applicants to residency programs with available positions at U.S. teaching hospitals. Graduating medical students across the country receive their match information at the same time on the same day.

Match Day is a festive affair at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall, with the dean giving a brief welcome to the students, their families and friends, then calling on the graduating class members to “open your envelopes.”

The next few minutes were noisy pandemonium, with whooping, hollering, high-fiving and happy snapshots while showing off match letters. Students then began taking to the stage with their regional campus classmates, sharing their results while beaming loved ones stood alongside. 

Class President Alycia “Aly” Savage then addressed the crowd. A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, she shared with her classmates a personal story of her disappointment on a previous “selection day” when she had completed flight training and learned what aircraft she would be piloting. She was assigned to her last choice.

“I did not want to fly the MV-22 Osprey. But the Osprey — an aircraft that combines the vertical takeoff and landing of a helicopter with the speed and range of a turboprop plane -- wanted me," she said. "More accurately, the Marine Corps needed Osprey pilots." 

She felt crushed that day, but looking back, she said she couldn't imagine her life any other way. "I became who I am because of a path I didn't choose.

So, whatever you felt today when you opened your envelope, feel it fully. Celebrate. Cry. Laught. Feel the relief, the excitement. If needed, feel disappointment, fear or uncertainty. And then, get to work," said Savage, who will be staying in Tallahassee for an FSU College of Medicine/TMH general surgery residency.

We may not always control where we land, but we absolutely control how we lead, how we serve, and who we become once we get there. Class of 2026, I am so incredibly proud of you," she said. "I cannot wait to walk across this graduation stage with you."

In her closing remarks, Littles reminded the students they were "almost to the mountaintop." 

"Eight weeks from tomorrow, we'll gather again in this same place and make it official," she said. "What a day it will be for all of us! See you then."

-- Contact Audrey Post at Audrey.Post@med.fsu.edu

The spring allergy season affects approximately 100 million Americans annually, triggered by immune system responses to a variety of airborne pollens. While the symptoms can range from sneezing, fatigue or even worsening asthma, staying ahead is key to avoiding harsher effects.

Dr. Stephen Quintero, an associate professor and medical director of the School of Physician Assistant Practice at the Florida State University College of Medicine, says patients must be weary of the spring allergy season and take necessary steps in advance.

“We tell a lot of our patients if they know they have allergies, start treatment early,” Quintero said. “Don't wait until you're miserable. Start using steroids before the peak season. The good news is we have some treatments where if you start early and stay consistent, they seem to help most people.”

Media inquiring about general information for the spring allergy season may reach out to Quintero via email at stephen.quintero@med.fsu.edu.

Dr. Stephen Quintero, associate professor and medical director, School of Physician Assistant Practice

What are some of your recommendations to best avoid triggering allergies in the spring?

Some examples include using a daily internasal steroid like the spray or any antihistamines. The nasal saline spray and some irrigation help rinse the pollen away before it has time to activate the immune system. Daily sprays or multiple sprays a day usually work well. Know your surroundings and control your environment as best as you can, especially for people who work outdoors in the grass. It’s important to shower afterwards and change clothes if you're doing yard work, and keeping your windows closed during the peak pollen season. Using HEPA filters indoors can help in small spaces.

If symptoms continue to worsen or if you have asthma, immunotherapy is an option and can be effective. Allergy shots can be effective in our North Florida region. We also have mold in North Florida because of the high humidity; that can be almost as important as pollen. While it might not be cost effective, dehumidification and HVAC maintenance are important.

What are some of the most common symptoms you see in individuals with allergy issues?

You get a mix of things, but most people have persistent nasal congestion, they have postnasal drip and they have chronic cough. You have people that just feel sinus pressure or pressure in their face. People will have the issue of watery eyes. And fatigue — this has become chronic in patients. A lot of patients think they have repeated sinus infections, but most of the time it's just uncontrolled allergic inflammation.
 

By Patrick Crowley
FSU College of Medicine

Through their daily interaction with patients, physicians routinely generate questions they know would be great research topics and lend themselves to improved patient care. But time and resources generally get in the way.

Physicians are busy. And their private practices, clinics and many hospitals are generally not set up to support research — they are focused on providing direct patient care.

Enter FSU Health, a transformational initiative launched by Florida State University to improve health in Florida by leveraging the university’s cutting-edge research capabilities and educational programs to forge new partnerships with clinical care providers. As part of the FSU Health initiative, university leaders are marshalling resources to support faculty, students and staff in the university's 17 colleges who are pursuing health-related work, including the College of Medicine's clerkship faculty interested in supporting student research.

“This partnership with the Office of Research, coupled with the vision and resources of FSU Health, is truly a win-win for our students and clerkship faculty,” said Alma Littles, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine. “It is incumbent upon us to provide the best education possible for our students so that they can become outstanding health care professionals, providing care for the people of Florida and beyond. Working with practicing physicians — in real-world settings — will have a significant and positive impact on patient care and outcomes.”

Resources run the gamut from proposal development, grants and contracts, biostatistics and informatics, to compliance and Institutional Review Board requirements, and everything in between.

“One of the key aspects to being a great clinical provider and physician is to be able to take basic science and information, which includes research, understand how to read the research, and translate it to patient care, because ultimately we're all patient educators,” said Matthew Lee (M.D., ’06) an early adopter of student research, and a surgery clerkship faculty member through the Tallahassee Regional Campus. “A physician is a patient educator, and if we can take the information from research and be able to relate it directly to patient care, that really helps the student's medical education.”

Lee is fortunate. Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic, where he practices, has a close relationship with FSU and actively supports student research through its TOC Foundation. TOC physicians are currently mentoring 12 students. Further cementing the partnership, TOC has hired Emilie Miley, Ph.D., as its director of research. She also holds a research faculty position in the Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health and Human Sciences, where she also serves as the assistant director of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Research in the college’s Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine.

“The TOC partnership with FSU is instrumental,” Miley said. “There are so many things that a researcher needs access to. You need access to articles, because not everything is open-source text. Having the connection to the academic institution really helps with that and it helps with things like REDCap,” which is short for Research Electronic Data Capture, a secure web-based application used to build and manage online surveys and databases for research studies.

“As practicing physicians, we have the clinical data. We have the patient databases, but we don’t have the time. We have ideas,” Lee said, adding that TOC has, on average, more than 280,000 office visits each year. “It really comes down to finances, time and resources as to why private practice physicians cannot produce research at the level that’s required today without assistance. The patient ultimately benefits, as well as the students, if there is collaboration.”

Lee added that the  “link between the private practice and academic institution is something I think needs to be created or replicated in a greater fashion.”

Working behind the scenes to help strengthen those partnerships and infrastructure is a core group of researchers, faculty and administrators, including Xian Jin Xie, Ph.D., the College of Medicine’s senior associate dean for Research and Graduate Programs. He and Suzanne Baker, assistant dean for Graduate Programs and Medical Student Research, are finding ways to build those resources to improve the student research experience and engage more faculty.

“Clerkship faculty have told me they are interested in research, but they likely need assistance on where to start,” Xie said. “We are building the infrastructure needed for them to be successful and have an opportunity to grow. The FSU College of Medicine brings great opportunity and value. Rather than focusing on just one teaching hospital, we can aggregate data from our clinical partners statewide.”

A crucial part of the FSU infrastructure, according to Xie, was the strategic establishment of 10 “hubs,” the result of a needs assessment done in partnership with Guidehouse Consultation and extensive focus groups.

“The College of Medicine cannot do this alone,” Baker said. “We need a university community and Florida State’s Office of Research is making this happen.”

Xie added, “Participation in and a better understanding of research creates better physicians in many ways. Evidence-based care can be enhanced by a better understanding of the research process. It expands problem-solving and differential diagnosis skills. Researchers are answering the questions we don’t have answers to yet.”

Ashley Mays, M.D., who is currently mentoring two FSU medical students, agrees. She’s an otolaryngologist focused on head and neck cancer surgery and reconstructive plastic surgery at Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital in Vero Beach, as well as an FSU clerkship faculty member at the college’s Fort Pierce Regional Campus. Both she and TOC’s Lee had one thing in common as medical school students: an interest in research.

“Medical schools would be doing students a disservice by not teaching them the research process and helping them find avenues to perform research,” Mays said. “I can tell you in my own training, if you didn't come with an application listing a robust research background, you weren't going anywhere. There was no way you were going to match into these very competitive residencies and fellowships. I do truly believe it is on the medical schools to plan for that and provide those opportunities.”

Mays has had medical students, including FSU’s Mikalin Huckeba, working on a variety of research projects, including thyroid cancer management and diagnoses. And, just like Lee, she helps students prepare for poster presentations and publishing their work.

“I’ve always had an interest in research, though it initially felt daunting and hard to navigate,” said Huckeba, a second-year medical student from Eastpoint, Florida. “This experience has deepened my respect for research and its role in advancing health care and improving communities. At the moment, I’m particularly drawn to topics related to head and neck conditions. This project has broadened my understanding of the patient’s journey during thyroid cancer treatment, both the positive experiences and the challenges. That insight will help me better support and guide patients as a future physician.”

As a busy surgeon with her own practice, Mays says one key to her research success — and working with students — is personal interest.

“I come from a very, very robust research background,” she said. “You have to start with personal interest. I would have never matched at MD Anderson Cancer Center for my fellowships if I didn't come with a long, robust history of research myself. So, I think it starts with a personal interest and continuing to grow research programs. I think to make it work and also being a very busy surgeon, you just have to be efficient. You have to understand what it takes to get a student signed up for research, how do you get them through the project and how to manage that. It's just a time-efficiency thing. But it has to start with personal interest.”

Mays admits she is not aware of all the resources the university offers to researchers but is glad there is a concerted effort to help clinicians.

“I'm certainly happy to hear that there's more of a push in that direction,” she said.

If you are a clerkship faculty member interested in serving as a faculty mentor on a research project or want more information, contact research@med.fsu.edu.

The Hubs
FSU Health established 10 “hubs,” each focused on a specific area, to provide research support. 
•    Animal Care and Use
•    Biostatistics and Informatics
•    Clinical Research
•    Community Engagement
•    Grant Administration
•    Human Subjects Protections
•    Information Technology and Data Management
•    Research Development
•    Research Integrity, Security, and Ethics
•    Strategic Partnerships and Innovation

Information about FSU Health can be found online: fsuhealth.fsu.edu 
Additional support is offered by UF-FSU Clinical and Translational Science Award: ctsa.research.fsu.edu

FSU College of Medicine student research opportunities

• Summer Research Fellowship
• FSU – Mayo Clinic Florida Joint Research Fellowship
• Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Research Program
  Medical Student National Fellowships