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Florida State University is slated to receive nearly $623 million in the Florida Legislature's proposed 2024-2025 budget, which includes a number of specific College of Medicine projects.

Lawmakers are expected to approve and forward the budget to Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday, March 8, closing out the legislative sessions. Beyond its portion from the university's operating allocation, these are some of the specific College of Medicine-related items in the proposed budget:
 

• Institute of Pediatric Rare Diseases ($5 million)
• Autism Institute ($1.48 million)
• FSU Behavioral Health ($525,000)

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Three Florida State University College of Medicine doctoral students were among a cohort of 24 who were celebrated as 2023-2024 recipients of McKnight Doctoral or Dissertation Fellowships at the 38th Annual McKnight Fellows Meeting and Research & Writing Conference in Tampa.

Doctoral candidate Meaghan Navarrete Mathews was honored as a McKnight Dissertation Fellow, while doctoral students Nella Delva and Zenzeale Hudson were recognized as McKnight Doctoral Fellows.

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Throughout Florida and the nation, there’s a significant physician shortage that creates barriers to health care for many. To help meet the demand for new physicians, BayCare plans to increase its residency positions to more than 650 by 2029.

“Here in Polk County, all the programs are academically sponsored by Florida State in collaboration with BayCare and Winter Haven Hospital,” said Nathan Falk, founding family medicine residency director for the FSU College of Medicine program at the BayCare Health System in Winter Haven.

“We first started the family medicine residency program in 2018, and we saw our first class onboarded in the summer of 2020. We graduated our first class in the summer of 2023. Of that first class, we graduated five individuals, and four out of the five stayed here in Polk County to practice, with the fifth one going to Orlando. So all five of them stayed in Central Florida.”
 

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Dr. Norman B. Anderson, clinical psychologist and well-known leader in the behavioral and social sciences, passed away on March 1, 2024. Dr. Anderson was born on October 16, 1955, in Greensboro, NC.

Anderson was appointed assistant vice president for research and academic affairs and professor of social work at Florida State University in 2017. In these roles he worked with faculty and administrators, including those at the College of Medicine, to advance the research mission of the university and to facilitate the success of emerging academic leaders.

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FSU College of Medicine Interim Dean Alma Littles, M.D. and Pradeep Bhide, Ph.D., executive director of the FSU Institute for Pediatric Rare Diseases, joined State Rep. Adam Anderson at the Florida Capitol Thursday in observance of Rare Disease Day.

"It's the most fitting day for Rare Disease Day because it is in fact the most rare day of the year," Anderson said of the February 29 gathering, which included a number of parents whose children suffer from rare diseases.

The College of Medicine's newly funded institute will conduct research and use technologies like gene therapy to help unlock the most effective treatments for children with rare diseases.

"We know that patients prefer to stay closer to home to receive care, and we look forward to developing a center that will allow them to receive much of the early testing, counseling and treatment of pediatric rare diseases as close to home as possible," Littles said.

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George Rust, M.D., FSU College of Medicine professor and director of the university's Center for Medicine and Public Health, has warned colleagues over the past year that pockets of vaccine hesitancy could lead to a potential measles outbreak in Florida.

The Florida Department of Health in Broward County is investigating multiple cases of measles at a Weston elementary school.

"There's the possibility that children who are not immunized and who are susceptible to measles are attending school, potentially getting measles and transmitting it to other kids," Rust said. "Now, you've, on the one hand, allowed parents to make their own choices for the child who are not immunized, but you've also taken away some choices for those parents who may feel that their children should be protected."

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Florida State University’s College of Medicine recently announced plans to launch a new psychiatry residency program — an addition that will bring psychiatric training into the Tallahassee area.

In partnership with Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) and the Apalachee Center, the initiative would help address the crucial need for training mental health care providers in the region and across Florida.