News of the Week

Scenes from 2023 Graduation Weekend

Sometimes there’s just too much good stuff to fit into one graduation story. Below are anecdotes from two days of joy, pride and unseasonably warm weather.

Natalia Correa, M.D. 2023

Dr. Natalia Correa’s parents were born in Colombia and came to the U.S. about 30 years ago, but she is Miami born and bred. She had a large contingent supporting her both at Friday’s Awards Ceremonies & Reception and Saturday’s graduation, including her grandmother and her godparents, who had flown from Bogota to be here.

“On my mom’s side of the family, I’m the only girl and the only doctor,” said Correa, who is headed to the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale for residency in general surgery.

Dr. Natalia Correa poses in front of the congratulatory banner her family created.
Dr. Natalia Correa poses in front of her family and the congratulatory banner they created. (Photo by Colin Hackley for the FSU College of Medicine.)

Her family created a giant congratulatory banner to mark the occasion.

Alma Littles, Interim Dean

This year’s graduation marked two significant changes in Dr. Alma Littles’ role.

At every one of the College of Medicine’s 18 previous commencement ceremonies, she led the faculty processional and recessional carrying the mace, an ornamental staff that symbolizes the authority of the university president, dean and faculty to confer degrees upon worthy candidates.

This year, that honor fell to Paul McLeod, M.D., senior associate dean of regional campuses and dean of the Pensacola Regional Campus. Littles had a bigger role to play, that of the dean overseeing the ceremony.

Dr. Tim Gemesi, M.D. 2023

Dr. Tim Gemesi begins his residency in obstetrics and gynecology soon at Stanford Health Care in Stanford, California. At Friday’s Class of 2023 Presentation of Awards ceremony, he was named recipient of the J. Ocie Harris Outstanding Student Award which recognizes the student who has shown the best all-around promise of becoming a physician of the highest caliber. He also was co-recipient, along with Katherine Oliver, of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s outstanding medical student in OB/GYN in this year’s FSU class. Gemesi was also recognized as the Sarasota Regional Campus Dean’s Award winner, in addition to his membership in both medical honor societies, Delta Chapter of Alpha Omega Alpha and the FSU Chapman Chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

Initially, this first generation Hungarian-American seemed destined for a very different career. Gemesi spent much of his childhood playing piano and training as a classical singer. He graduated in 2016 from Oberlin College’s rigorous dual-degree program with a bachelor of arts in anthropology and a bachelor of music in vocal performance.

After completing his premedical classes at the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus, the Sarasota native began medical school at FSU in 2019.

“I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to study medicine here,” Gemesi said. “I hope to represent the Florida State University College of Medicine well as I build on that foundation at Stanford.”

Dr. Amber Hannah and Dr. Shellon Baugh, M.D. 2023

A couple of proud Mamas bragged about their daughters at Friday’s Awards Ceremony & Reception.

“I am so very proud of my daughter. I am exhilarated!” said Deborah Hannah, mother of graduate Dr. Amber Hannah, a Quincy native who is headed to a residency in general surgery at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. “She is very determined to do her best always, and she’s always loved learning. The first day I dropped her off at pre-K, I was waiting for the tears. She just waved her little hand and said ‘Bye, Mama. See you later.’ “

Sharon Baugh similarly praised her daughter, Dr. Shellon Baugh, who is soon starting a residency in family medicine at AdventHealth in Orlando. The family moved to Florida in 2006 from Jamaica.

“She is determined. She is humble. She is elegant, trustworthy, a hard worker,” Sharon Baugh said. “I am over the moon. It’s a dream come true.”

Dr. Lauren Smiarowski and Dr. Barrie Bedasee, M.D. 2023

Mary Ann Hall, whose niece Lauren Smiarowski graduated Saturday and begins her residency in pediatrics at Orlando Health, was grateful to see the military promotion ceremony incorporated into Commencement Exercises.

“I was very glad to see the military represented,” said the former U.S. Army nurse who lives in Gainesville. “I have never seen that done before and I really appreciate it.”

She was happy to see Dr. Jordin Giles Zuelke among the three officers promoted to captain – with Dr. Brian Nykanen and Zuelke in the Army and Dr. Eric Minnix in the Air Force.

“It meant a lot to me, especially since there weren’t a lot of women in the military when I was in it.”

She was also pleased a woman was among the four U.S. Navy veterans standing on stage for the playing of “Anchors Aweigh” during the Armed Forces Medley.

Dr. Barrie Bedasee was touched to learn that her Navy service meant something to Hall. “Thanks for telling me.”

Bedasee was in the Navy from 2015 to 2018, stationed at Camp Pendleton, California. She starts her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at University of Miami/Jackson Health System.

Armed Forces Day falls on the third Saturday in May, just as the FSU College of Medicine graduation does. Dean-emeritus John P. Fogarty, a physician and retired U.S. Army colonel, established the promotion ceremony as part of the graduation program early in his tenure as dean. Earlier that morning, Fogarty led a pinning ceremony held for the military graduates.

 

 

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May 02, 2023
Tallahassee Democrat

FSU SeniorHealth providers place a high priority on improving the self-management skills of older patients. They work in conjunction with primary care providers to provide comprehensive evaluations and develop integrated care plans for seniors diagnosed with a wide range of health issues.

 

News of the Week

Flowers named to Emerging Leaders program

Kerwyn L. Flowers, an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Rural Health at the Florida State University College of Medicine, has been selected to participate in the university’s Leadership Development Program for Emerging Leaders for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Kerwyn Flowers, D.O.
Kerwyn Flowers, D.O.

“I am honored to accept the invitation to the Emerging Leaders Program,” said Flowers, who also serves as director of rural medical education and director of clinical programs.

The leadership program, designed and led by Norman Anderson, assistant vice president for research and academic affairs and research professor of social work and nursing, works with deans to identify rising leaders and help them accomplish leadership or academic goals. The 2023-2024 cohort will be the fifth one to complete the program; 17 of the 20 who were nominated agreed to participate, Anderson said. The first class, in 2019-2020, had 12 participants. Since then, each cohort has had between 20 and 23 participants.

According to the invitation letter from Janet Kistner, FSU vice president for faculty development and advancement, and professor of psychology, the program initially focused on leadership development for department chairs, associate deans and leaders of research institutes.

“However, we are now in our fourth year of offering a year-long leadership program for ‘emerging leaders’ – those who are viewed by their deans as having clear potential for leadership and service at FSU and beyond,” Kistner wrote.

Flowers joined the College of Medicine faculty in the spring of 2017. Previously, she was a faculty member at the Floyd Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program in Rome, Georgia, where she helped train residents and medical students in both inpatient and outpatient settings. She also served as the director of Osteopathic Medical Education.

She earned her bachelor’s degree at Florida A&M University, graduated from the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2007 and completed her family medicine residency at Akron City Hospital in Ohio in 2010. Following several years in private practice in the North Florida/South Georgia area, she completed an academic medicine fellowship at Northeast Ohio Medical University in Akron in 2015.

Flowers is dually board-certified in family medicine, from both the American Osteopathic Association and the American Board of Family Medicine. Her areas of special interest include musculoskeletal medicine, preventive health care, medical student education in clinical examination and diagnostic skills, patient partnership and empowerment, underserved communities and rural health.

She is the third faculty member from the College of Medicine to participate since the program’s inception. Flowers follows Naharika Suchak, associate professor from the Department of Geriatrics (2021-22) and Nicole Ennis, associate professor and vice chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine (2022-23).

 

News of the Week

Florida's abortion laws protect a pregnant person's life, but not for mental health

Heather Flynn, a psychologist and chair of the FSU College of Medicine's Department of Behavioral Science and Social Medicine, is concerned that mental health is not an exception when the life of a pregnant person is at risk under the new six-week abortion ban recently signed by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Flynn shared her concerns on NPR's All Things Considered.

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News of the Week

Groundbreaking held for future Pensacola Regional Campus

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Tuesday, April 18 for the future site of the FSU College of Medicine Pensacola Regional Campus. 

Paul McLeod, dean of the Pensacola Regional Campus, participated in the ceremony for the $6 million Sandy Sansing Sports Medicine Center on the University of West Florida campus. The 10,000-square-foot center will be an addition to the Darrell Gooden Center, which currently houses the College of Medicine’s Pensacola campus.

FSU will be moving into the 5,000-square-foot top floor of the new center. The space will include a 60-person classroom, an open lounge area to be shared with students, a quiet study area and office space for testing accommodations and meetings.

The center is expected to take 18 months to construct.
 

groundbreaking for future Pensacola Regional Campus

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Apr 17, 2023
American Medical Association

Second-year College of Medicine medical student Alex Tolbert, participating in the AMA Medical Student Advocacy Conference in Washington, D.C., offered some real-life perspective on how the shortage of federally-funded graduate medical education (GME) positions is a stressor on aspiring physicians.

 

News of the Week

Appelbaum contributes to multidisciplinary roundtable on HIV management

Jonathan Appelbaum, chair of the College of Medicine's Department of Clinical Sciences, was among four medical professionals discussing the importance of a collaborative approach to managing patients with HIV. The multidisciplinary video roundtable was hosted by Consultant 360.

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Press Release

FSU researchers examine role of crucial hormone and exercise with $1.8 million NIH grant

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 CONTACT: Bill Wellock, University Communications
(850) 645-1504; wwellock@fsu.edu

 @FSUResearch

 April 2023 

FSU RESEARCHERS EXAMINE ROLE OF CRUCIAL HORMONE AND EXERCISE
WITH $1.8M NIH GRANT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The human circulatory system is a marvel that stretches out over more than 60,000 miles within an adult body. Keeping it functioning properly is a crucial part of maintaining good health, especially as people age and the circulatory system weakens.

Among the ingredients that go into keeping it healthy is a hormone called adiponectin.

 A new $1.8 million Florida State University study funded by the National Institutes of Health will examine the role adiponectin plays in the circulatory system of aging adults and how exercise affects its influence on vascular health. The research aims to offer more insight into how exercise brings benefits and explore how adiponectin can potentially be used for treatment.

“The more we find out about why exercise is good for your cardiovascular system and good for your blood vessels, I think the better we can prescribe exercise depending upon things like age, weight or disease status,” said Judy Delp, a professor in FSU’s College of Medicine who is leading the study. “But if we don't know the hormonal signals that are created by exercise, it makes it harder to do precise exercise prescription.”

Adiponectin is an important hormone in a variety of metabolic processes. Much like insulin, it increases metabolism that is fueled by glucose, the body’s main source of energy.

The hormone’s anti-inflammatory properties also affect the build-up of cholesterol plaque in the walls of arteries. Low levels of adiponectin contribute to plaque build-up, which narrows arteries and restricts blood flow. More recent research found evidence that it also affects the cells that line and make up blood vessels.

“So, if adiponectin does all those things, then our question is ‘How critical is it to that beneficial effect that we see from exercise?’” Delp said. “There are many things that are activated by exercise. Is adiponectin one of those critical signals?”

And what happens if it’s not present? To find out, the researchers will examine mice in which genes have been altered to remove adiponectin. In previous studies of mice born without those genes, they developed a set of adaptations that helped them function, although they did not exhibit the same response to exercise. In this study, the researchers will give mice born with the genes a drug that removes the adiponectin-producing genes. They’ll then examine mice at different ages and under different aerobic exercise regimens and observe what benefits exercise imparts.

To measure those benefits, researchers need to take their analysis to the cellular level. Tristan Driscoll, an assistant professor at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, will measure the mechanical forces produced by vascular cells and how their stiffness changes in response to changes in adiponectin and exercise.

Their collaboration began when Delp saw Driscoll’s presentation at Collaborative Collision, a networking event organized by the FSU Office of Research Development.

“That helped bring us together for this project,” Driscoll said. “Biomedical engineering is inherently interdisciplinary, and there’s a lot of potential for future opportunities to work together.”

FSU faculty Choogon Lee, Steven Lenhert, Jose R. Pinto, Gloria Salazar, Cynthia Vied and Mike Overton are co-investigators on this research.

This research is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Press Release

Researchers find earlier intervention leads to greater improvements in young children on the autism spectrum

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:

Audrey Post, Florida State University College of Medicine
(850) 645-9428
Audrey.Post@med.fsu.edu

Ben Leach, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
(609) 634-7906
Leachb@email.chop.edu

 

RESEARCHERS FIND EARLIER INTERVENTION LEADS TO GREATER IMPROVEMENTS IN YOUNG CHILDREN ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Florida State University (FSU), and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have demonstrated that starting intervention-coaching parents of autistic toddlers as early as 18 months leads to better gains in language, social communication, and daily living skills.

Their findings were recently published in the journal Autism.

While prior studies provided strong evidence for the benefits of early intervention in autism, many are correlation studies rather than randomized controlled studies that can provide more conclusive results. Additionally, prior research has not demonstrated an ideal age at which to begin interventions.

“Many of us in the autism community say earlier is better, but we actually do not have enough high-quality evidence for that, so a randomized controlled trial like this one helps address that issue,” said lead author Whitney Guthrie, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist with the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and researcher at CHOP’s Center for Autism Research.

Researchers used the Early Social Interaction (ESI) model, a parent-implemented intervention for toddlers diagnosed with autism that provides a framework to support a child’s development in social communication and active engagement. It also is a framework for parents as they receive both group education and individualized coaching to incorporate evidence-based strategies into everyday activities in the family’s natural environments.

In this study, families received both group and individual conditions but were randomized as to whether the Individual-ESI intervention coaching began when the toddlers were 18 months old or 27 months old. A total of 82 toddlers and their parents participated in the study, conducted at Florida State University and the University of Michigan.

The study found that children who received individualized ESI coaching earlier showed greater gains in use and understanding of language, social use of communication skills, and self-help skills. Additionally, the findings were specific to the intensive and individualized parent-coaching model, compared with the group-education treatment.

“This study provides research findings that show starting just nine months earlier, at 18 months versus 27 months, makes a difference in the child’s progress,” said Amy Wetherby, Ph.D., director of the Autism Institute at Florida State University. “And that makes sense because this is during a period in which a child’s brain is developing the most rapidly, in the first two years of life. That doesn’t mean they won’t continue to learn later, but by providing these interventions even earlier, they have the greatest chance of having the most impact.”

“This program is also not something that is likely to cause harm, and it could help many children, with or without autism,” UCLA Professor Catherine Lord, Ph.D., said. “The intent is to support parents and other caregivers in their everyday interactions, not to replace other possible sources of intervention, including preschool programs and direct therapies.”

The research team included Guthrie and co-principal investigators Wetherby and Lord. Guthrie worked with Lord during her undergraduate career at Michigan, then worked with Wetherby during her doctoral program in clinical psychology at FSU. The findings were part of Guthrie’s ambitious doctoral dissertation.

This study highlights the importance of the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics that all children are first screened for autism at 18 months, which is critical to get started earlier with intervention, Wetherby said.

Lord hopes the study results “will stimulate discussions among governmental agencies about how to get children into services faster, perhaps by not waiting for formal diagnoses but requiring an eventual diagnosis at some point, and also by providing more and better reimbursed diagnostic services.”

Lord also wants frontline workers who might be the first to see the children — like pediatricians, primary care physicians, speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists — to be able to admit children into programs.

Guthrie said that while it is important to expand future research to include more children from a wider and more diverse community, the results of this study provide measurable evidence supporting earlier intervention.

“Our findings underscore the importance of a swift referral for evaluation if a child screens positive for autism, or there is any professional or caregiver concern for autism,” Guthrie said. “We want to make sure that toddlers don’t miss this important window for earlier intervention.”

This study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, a division of the National Institutes of Health, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. This research was also supported in part by funding from Autism Speaks and the Simons Foundation.

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Apr 10, 2023
American Medical Association

Florida State University College of Medicine student Alex Tolbert outlines some of the benefits for those look to build their leadership experience through organized medicine. 

 

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