The annual Florida State University College of Medicine faculty and staff awards were presented Nov. 7 in a lunchtime hybrid celebration in the Durell Peaden Auditorium and online.

Assistant Professor Heidi Kinsell chaired the Faculty Council Executive Committee (FCEC) and shared master of ceremonies duties with Assistant Professor Mike Drury. Awards were presented to outstanding faculty educators and researchers, Guardian of the Mission and Service, and exemplary staff. 

The recipients of the 2021-22 awards are as follows:

Guardian of the Mission and Service: Anthony Speights, M.D., Senior Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences and Director of the Bridge to Clinical Medicine Master’s Program
Outstanding Senior Faculty Educator: Gregg Stanwood, Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences
Outstanding Junior Faculty Educator: Raed Rizkallah, Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences
Outstanding Senior Faculty Researcher: Gregg Stanwood, Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences
Outstanding Junior Faculty Researcher: Stephen Chelko, Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences
Exemplary Staff Member: Kaitlyn Odom, Family Medicine & Rural Health
Exemplary Staff or Group: Biomedical Sciences (office & laboratory)

In addition, the following College of Medicine employees were recognized for their longevity of service:

20 Years
Paul McLeod, Medicine Instruction
Heather Rodriguez-Raymond, Medical Education
Alma Littles, Academic Affairs
Mohamed Kabbaj, Medicine Biomedical Sciences
Branko Stefanovic, Medicine Biomedical Sciences

15 Years
Luckey Dunn, Daytona Beach RMSC
Andrea La Douceur, Daytona Beach RMSC
Michele Lusquinos, Fort Pierce RMSC
Vickie McDowell, Daytona Beach RMSC
Urszula Knight, Fort Pierce RMSC
Elizabeth Strack, Fort Pierce RMSC
Bijan Fallahi, Daytona Beach RMSC
Joseph Gabriel, Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine
Yi Zhou, Medicine Biomedical Sciences
Sanjay Kumar, Medicine Biomedical Sciences
Jonquil Livingston, Medicine Biomedical Sciences

10 years
Carla Dunn, Student Affairs/Admissions
Kema Gadson, Student Affairs/Admissions
Benjamin Brownell, Information Technology
Joedrecka Brown Speights, Family Medicine & Rural Health
LaVon Edgerton, Geriatrics
Chuck Wells, Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine
Pat Suzor, Sarasota RMSC
Sherrie Hajek, Autism
Gorana Knezevic-Zec, Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine
Gregory Todd, Center for Medicine and Law
Junelle Gallon, Finance & Administration
Gia McCue, Information Technology
Donna O’Neal, Medicine Instruction
Xan Nowakowski, Geriatrics
Raed Rizkallah, Medicine Biomedical Sciences
Angelina Sutin, Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine
Antonio Terracciano, Geriatrics
Chenelle Gordon, Medicine Biomedical Sciences
Danae Denslow, Medical Library
Aleta Barber, Information Technology
Robyn Rosasco, Medical Library
Kathryn Seitz, Tallahassee RMSC
Jeff Latimer, Information Technology
Ellen Potts, Research & Graduate Programs
Dawn Snyder, Finance & Administration

A complete listing of previous College of Medicine awards can be found here.

A team of medical students and their faculty mentor from the Florida State University College of Medicine led a panel discussion at the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Family Medical Experience Conference in Washington, D.C., in October.

Titled “Connecting, Captivating and Cultivating: Engaging with the Next Generation of Global Health Professionals,” the presentation was moderated by Charles Fleisher, M.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Rural Health and director of the college’s Center on Global Health (CGH). The goal of the presentation was increasing student interest in global health issues and initiatives.

The CGH Project (CGHP) extends the college’s mission of improving the health of underserved populations to areas around the world, working in partnership with other professions and institutions. For the past several years, the partners have worked with communities in rural Honduras “through sustainable interventions that are not only culturally sensitive, but also desired by the communities we work with,” said Michelle Flohr, a fourth-year medical student at the Sarasota Regional Campus and CGHP senior research manager.

Other students who presented were Elora Friar, also a fourth-year student at the Sarasota campus, and Sean Gabany and Michael Hong, both second-year students.

Two other students contributed to the presentation but were unable to attend: Genevieve Patrick, a third-year student at the Tallahassee Regional Campus, and Analise Dilorio, a third-year student at the Daytona Beach Regional Campus.

In 2006, researchers at the University of California, Davis, recruited hundreds of fifth-graders and their parents of Mexican origin for a health and development study. The initial plan was to monitor the families for at least three years.

The California Families Project is still going strong in 2022, having expanded –  as the fifth-graders grew up and had families of their own -- from a focus on youth drug risks and resilience to a multigenerational look at overall health and well-being.

Florida State University College of Medicine Professor Angelina R. Sutin joined the project in 2018 as the director of the Healthy Aging Substudy. Sutin was completing her doctoral work at UC Davis when the California Families Project (CFP) was launched under the guidance of Richard W. Robins, Ph.D., distinguished professor of psychology and project director.

“I was not involved in it then,” Sutin said. “I worked with Dr. Robins as a graduate student and we have kept in touch over the years and maintained a collaboration. Several years ago, he reached out to me to brainstorm ideas about whether there are any important aging-related questions that could be addressed in the CFP.

“There was an easy answer to that question – cognitive aging and risk of dementia.”

The opportunity to work with what is regarded as the “most comprehensive longitudinal study of its kind in the United States” was especially appealing to Sutin.

“Hispanic/Latino adults are disproportionately at risk for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias,” Sutin said. “Dr. Robins works with this population and has very rich information on their health and well-being collected over many years. It was really a unique opportunity to examine risk and protective factors for cognitive changes from middle to older adulthood. A better understanding of these factors will help with intervention development for healthier cognitive outcomes.”

According to UC Davis, Sutin and Robins are assessing memory, language and other aspects of cognitive function; tracking activity, sleep, medication and health risks; and measuring cholesterol, blood-sugar, inflammation and COVID-19 exposure in more than 1,000 people. These were the parents of the former fifth-graders in the California Families Project, a generation that is now predominantly in their 40s to 60s.

The full scope of the longitudinal study is covered in a recent article, California Families Project: Resilience and Community, published by UC Davis.
 

An article published recently in the Substance Use and Misuse journal, which analyzed self-reported responses from more than 2,000 patients enrolled in Florida’s medical cannabis program, found that more than three-quarters said they eliminated or significantly reduced their opioid use after beginning cannabis treatment.

“Medical Cannabis Patients Report Improvements in Health Functioning and Reductions in Opiate Use” was co-authored by Heather Flynn, professor and chair of the Department of Behavioral Science and Social Medicine at the Florida State University College of Medicine.

The survey was conducted when medical cannabis was relatively new to Florida, Flynn said. The Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014 took effect Jan. 1, 2015.  Data for this study was collected anonymously between August and October 2018. Respondents were recruited through Trulieve dispensaries and self-selected to participate; they were asked to answer retrospectively, based on their experience within that first year of access to prescription medical cannabis.  Participants who gave consent for their data to be analyzed – all but 26 of the 2,209 participants – received a $5 credit card toward purchase of cannabis dispensary products.

“My co-authors were part of a research group called Emerald Coast Research, and they had an idea for a survey of new cannabis cases,” Flynn said. “I thought it was an important thing to study. It would also be very timely, given the opioid crisis, to include some items in the survey on their use of opioids and other prescription medications.”

She expected the self-reporting of reduced opioid use to be high, but she was surprised that it was 79%.

The survey also asked for demographic information, ailments being treated, prior prescription pain medication and frequency of use, and frequency of medical cannabis use.

“It’s important to note the limitations of the findings, because this was a cross-sectional survey and people self-reported their patterns of use over time, since medical cannabis was initiated,” Flynn said. “They are telling us they had used opioids before and now they’re not using opioids, as a result of cannabis. This adds intriguing data to the idea that medical cannabis use could play a role in reducing opioid use.”

Flynn said an important next step is to do a more in-depth and longitudinal study of patterns of use, as well as attitudes and beliefs about cannabis as an alternative for pain management.

“We need to find out how the rates of opioid use are truly changing,” she said, “and to dig in a little more to some of the effects on the person’s overall medical and functioning outcomes.”

Flynn’s co-authors were Yuxia Wang of the FSU College of Medicine and Carolyn E. Pritchett and James E. Polston of Emerald Coast Research. Pritchett, who served as primary investigator, was on the faculty of the University of West Florida at the time. Flynn said t is important to note that that the project had a Data Use Agreement in place which specified that all study procedures, data analyses, interpretation of the results and manuscript preparation was done without influence or input from Trulieve.  Trulieve was provided with updates and a summary of results after study completion.

Florida State University’s multidisciplinary iGEM Team earned a silver medal at the 2022 iGEM Giant Jamboree, held Oct. 26-28 in Paris. It is the fifth medal in the past six years for the FSU team.

“The team strived for gold,” said Cesar Rodriguez, M.D., the team’s leader who serves as research faculty and entrepreneur in residence at the College of Medicine. “Despite a lot of sweat and creativity, we were unable to assemble a large DNA molecule, with 12,000 base pairs instead of the more common 6,000 to 8,000 base pairs.

“The judges recognized the hard work and lessons learned, but it kept us from the gold medal.”

Rodriguez said FSU was one of nine collegiate teams to earn silver medals from a field of 50 U.S.-based teams. More than 40 teams from around the world competed.

iGEM, which stands for Internationally Genetically Engineered Machine, gives students an opportunity to push the boundaries of synthetic biology by tackling everyday issues facing the world. This year, the FSU team’s topic was “Quest for Biodegradable Algaecides,” a study of the impacts of algae blooms on Florida’s manatees and the impacts of a synthetic solution called Sea Clear.

They were inspired by researchers at Jiangnan University in China, who published a paper showing how the fungal toxin cercosporin can inactivate cyanobacteria responsible for the blooms. Algae blooms caused by excess fertilizer runoff diminish light penetration and cause seagrass, the manatee’s primary food source, to die off. More than 1,000 Florida manatees died in 2021 because of starvation, entanglement and boats.

FSU’s iGEM team attempted to separate and genetically modify essential genes required for cercosporin production, then clone them into baker’s yeast. Team members hope their work will serve as a “proof of concept” experiment and motivate others to continue to isolate and optimize the pathway, so it can be extracted in meaningful amounts and dispersed as an emergency treatment.

View the project documentation and project promotion video.

“FSU iGEM is the winningest team in Florida and among the best in the country. FSU has the only gold medal in Florida,” Rodriguez said. “Most importantly, the FSU iGEM mission was accomplished. The students learned a lot and they had an unforgettable experience in Paris!”

The Florida State University College of Medicine will welcome American Medical Women’s Association members from four southeastern states to the daylong Region 4 Conference on Saturday, Oct. 22.

Madison Patrick, a second-year FSU medical student and the conference director, said 125 people registered for the event, primarily medical students but also academic physicians and undergraduate and graduate students interested in careers in medicine. This year’s theme is “Caring with Compassion.” (Visit the conference website.)

Dr. Melissa Parsons, an associate professor of emergency medicine and assistant program director in emergency medicine residency at UF Health in Jacksonville, will deliver the keynote address. Along with FSU College of Medicine graduate Dr. Lexie Mannix, Parsons co-founded sheMD, a free open-access medical education platform for women who want a career in medicine.

The goal of sheMD is “to inspire and educate women in medical training about gender disparities and to provide tools to overcome inequality,” according to its website. Parsons' topic will be "Being a Woman in Medicine: What We Wish We Had Known."

In addition to the keynote, the two other speakers are Dr. Shelby Blank, a general surgeon at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, and Dr. Nicole Bentze, dean of the college’s Sarasota Regional Campus and a board-certified family physician. Blank will discuss “Compassion Fatigue” and how self-care is important to delivering quality, patient-centered care. Bentze will address "Stress Management in Medicine."

Two hands-on clinics, one on suturing and one on implanting IUDs for birth control, as well as two concurrent panel discussions will also be a part of the program.

Dr. Harris Green of Dermatology Associates of Tallahassee and Dr. Austinn Miller, a dermatology resident there, will lead the suturing clinic. Dr. Shermeeka Hogans-Mathews, an assistant professor of family medicine and rural health at FSU, will lead the IUD clinic.

A panel composed of medical residents will take questions from medical students about what to expect as they apply for and begin residencies. Current medical students will answer questions from undergraduate students considering medical school.

Patrick attended her first AMWA conference at the University of Alabama-Birmingham while an undergraduate student at Auburn University. There, she presented her research on the effectiveness of natural compounds on drug-resistant tuberculosis. Based on her positive experience, she jumped at the opportunity to plan and oversee this weekend’s conference.

“A big part of every conference is getting to network and getting to learn from the other attendees,” she said. “It’s a relaxing environment but it’s still productive.”

The Chapman Community Health Program (CCHP) was recently honored with a “Guardian Angel Award” for its work with residents of Maryland Oaks Crossing, a low-income housing community in Tallahassee. The award was presented at the Good News Outreach Prayer Breakfast at St. John’s Episcopal Church in September.

CCHP provides an opportunity for Florida State University College of Medicine students to engage in the college’s mission, serving medically underserved populations and responding to community needs. At Maryland Oaks Crossing, volunteers plan and conduct bi-monthly health screenings; promote wellness with initiatives such as smoking cessation, nutrition and dental hygiene workshops; coordinate a community garden; and plan social events.

They also work with medical residents at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, who provide individual consultations after screenings, as well as annual flu shots. CCHP works with Neighborhood Health Center and provides transportation, if needed, when screenings prompt referrals for medical care. In partnership with Nole-Med, an FSU undergraduate organization, CCHP provides weekly tutoring for children at Maryland Oaks Crossing.

Funded by The Jules B. Chapman M.D. and Annie Lou Chapman Foundation, CCHP is a partnership between the College of Medicine and Good News Outreach (GNO), a faith-based organization that is not affiliated with any church or religion. It sponsors four programs across Tallahassee that work to reduce homelessness, hunger, recidivism and isolation by providing food, shelter, mentoring and social interaction. In addition to Maryland Oaks Crossing, GNO also operates re-entry programs for formerly incarcerated men and women, and an elder service program that helps seniors stay in their homes.

Sean Gabany is a second-year medical student who serves as one of the co-executive directors of CCHP. He said it has been an honor to lead the program, which combines the college’s mission to respond to community needs and serve the underserved with the Chapman Foundation’s mission to develop exemplary humanistic physicians.

“We are able to work directly with the residents of the Maryland Oaks Crossing Community and learn their stories and needs firsthand,” he said. “From there, we are able to plan events and projects to specifically meet those needs.

“We love CCHP because it gives us a chance to make a difference now in the communities around us, just as we plan to, once we are full-fledged physicians.”

CCHP operates under the umbrella of the FSUCares program.