CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255
August 2002

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-An award-winning family physician with roots in rural Gadsden County has been appointed chair of the department of family medicine and rural health at the Florida State University College of Medicine.
Dr. Alma Littles will be responsible for directing the development and implementation of the college's family medicine education program.

"Dr. Littles is a wonderful family physician role model for our students," said Dr. Joseph E. Scherger, dean of the medical school. "She has demonstrated a tremendous degree of dedication to her patients, to her community, to teaching and to the medical profession."

Named Family Doctor of the Year by the Florida Academy of Family Physicians in 1993, Littles had a solo private practice in her hometown of Quincy, Fla., from 1989 to 1994 and went on to serve as medical director for Quincy Family Practice and Quincy Medical Group.

"Having come from one of Florida's most medically underserved, rural communities and returned there to practice, Dr. Littles has a deep, personal understanding of the health-care needs of rural Floridians, making her an ideal leader for a department that will focus heavily on addressing the state's rural health needs," Scherger said.

Littles comes to FSU from Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, where she had served as director of the Family Practice Residency Program since 1999 and had been a member of the faculty since 1996.

Board certified in family practice, Littles has held a number of leadership positions in both the Florida Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians and served as president of the Capital Medical Society in 1996.

"I'm excited about the opportunity to become involved in the building of a medical school from the ground up, especially one whose primary mission is to train primary care physicians who will be equipped to practice in rural areas," Littles said. "Based on my own experiences, I believe this school will be a large part of the answer to improving access to care for the citizens of rural North Florida and other areas of the state in need of primary care doctors."

With the appointment of Dr. Littles, the medical school now has 54 full-time and 104 part-time faculty.

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

September 16, 2002 


TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida State University College of Medicine has established its Regional Medical School Campus – Tallahassee, which includes multiple clinical training sites in Tallahassee, as well as sites in Perry and Marianna. 

College of Medicine Dean Joseph Scherger today announced that Dr. Eugene Trowers has been appointed assistant dean for the new regional campus. Trowers will oversee the third- and fourth-year clinical education of those students assigned to Tallahassee. FSU also has regional medical school campuses in Pensacola and Orlando.

Doctors’ Memorial Hospital in Perry and Jackson Hospital in Marianna are the latest medical facilities to sign affiliation agreements that allow Florida State University’s third- and fourth-year medical students to train with their physicians. Capital Health Plan and Tallahassee Community Hospital earlier signed similar agreements. 

Representatives of each facility were on the FSU campus today to tour the medical school and meet the six students who will begin clinical rotations at their facilities in July of next year.

“It gives us great pleasure to welcome our affiliates,” Scherger said. “They all have excellent facilities and top-notch doctors, and we know they will provide wonderful learning opportunities for our students.”
 
Practicing physicians at the college’s affiliated institutions and in doctors’ offices throughout the region will train students in each of eight clinical areas – family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, obstetrics-gynecology, geriatrics, psychiatry, and emergency medicine. 

Trowers comes to FSU from Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, where he served as the assistant program director for the gastroenterology fellowship program.

“The medical community in this area seems to be very enthusiastic about the opportunity to become involved in teaching our students,” Trowers said. “I’ve been impressed with the quality of the physicians I’ve met here, as well as the quality of the area’s medical institutions.”

Doctors’ Memorial Hospital and Tallahassee Community Hospital are in the process of building new hospitals, both of which will be open by the time FSU’s medical students arrive next summer. 

With the addition of Doctors’ Memorial Hospital and Jackson Hospital, FSU now has affiliation agreements with eight hospitals and hospital systems in northern and central Florida.

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

September 16, 2002

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Dr. Eugene Trowers has been named assistant dean of the Florida State University Regional Medical School Campus -- Tallahassee.

Trowers will be responsible for directing the clinical education program for those FSU medical students assigned to Tallahassee for the third and fourth years of medical school. He comes to FSU from Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, where he served as the assistant program director for the gastroenterology fellowship program. 

“Dr. Trowers has just the right combination of academic and clinical experience to guide this new program,” said Dr. J. Ocie Harris, associate dean for clinical education at the FSU College of Medicine. “Also, he comes from a community-based medical school, so he understands the model FSU is using.”

A graduate of New York University School of Medicine, Trowers completed a residency in internal medicine at Harlem Hospital and earned a master’s in public health from the University of Texas in Houston. He practiced internal medicine and gastroenterology in San Antonio for 10 years and was on the medical faculty of the University of Texas system from 1985 until joining FSU in August. 

He served as a National Institutes of Health extramural clinical research fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle, specializing in endoscopic ultrasound and device development, and has worked as principal investigator on several research projects. 

Dr. Alma Littles, chair of the department of family medicine and rural health, headed the search committee that selected Trowers and said his ability to relate to practicing physicians was one of his strengths. Dr. Avon Doll, the Capital Medical Society representative on the advisory board for the Regional Medical School Campus -- Tallahassee, said he expects Trowers to be well received by the medical community.

“Dr. Trowers had a very successful practice in San Antonio and was well respected by his peers,” Doll said. “I think he’ll do an excellent job of working with local physicians who will become part-time teachers for the FSU College of Medicine.”  

Trowers said the opportunity to work for a new medical school that is using innovative teaching methods was appealing, as was the school’s community-based model.

“Because of the fact that we’re a community-based medical school, we are very much interested in working with the community physicians and hospitals for the training of our students,” Trowers said. “While there are many educational advantages to teaching medical students locally in community settings, it also works toward the betterment of health for Tallahassee and the surrounding region.” 

The Regional Medical School Campus -- Tallahassee is one of three campuses where third- and fourth-year medical students from FSU will complete their clinical education. The other regional campuses are in Orlando and Pensacola. In July 2003, the medical school’s inaugural class will be divided into three groups, each of which will be assigned to one of the three campuses for the remaining two years of their medical education.

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

October 2002

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., -- A leading medical software maker has established a partnership with the Florida State University College of Medicine to advance the use of medical information technology among students and physicians.

As part of the partnership, Seattle-based Physician Micro Systems Inc. (PMSI) is providing Practice Partner®, the company’s popular electronic medical record and patient appointment scheduling software, to FSU’s Clinical Learning Center.

FSU is using PMSI’s Practice Partner® to prepare students to document clinical encounters using the latest electronic medical records technology.

“Electronic medical record systems like Practice Partner are among the new technologies and methods now available to advance the delivery of health care to an unprecedented level of quality,” said College of Medicine Dean Joseph Scherger. “The Florida State University College of Medicine has the opportunity to lead in the development and implementation of these technologies.”

PMSI President Andrew Ury, M.D. said that PMSI shares FSU’s interest in promoting the use of systems that will result in healthier, better-informed patients.

“The ultimate goal here is to provide the best patient care, plain and simple,” Ury said.

Bruce Kleaveland, PMSI’s chief operating officer, said the company’s partnership with FSU is creating a training opportunity for physicians to learn how to work in the ideal medical practice of the 21st century.

“Being ranked among the nation’s top health-care information technology companies, it’s exciting for us to see a medical school so committed to being a national leader in the integration of these new technologies into medical education,” Kleaveland said.

Founded in 1983, PMSI is a leader in the development and marketing of innovative electronic medical records and practice management products for medical offices and large health care enterprises. More than 1,200 offices use PMSI software, and more than 700 of them use Practice Partner Patient Records -- more sites than any other office-based electronic medical records system.

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

October 2002


TALLAHASSEE, Fla., --The Clinical Learning Center at the Florida State University College of Medicine is pioneering the use of electronic medical records in the training of medical students in a simulated clinical setting.

College of Medicine Dean Joseph Scherger said that the electronic medical record system is a key part of a much larger commitment the college has made to integrating medical information technology into the curriculum at FSU.

“Information technology is a major emphasis of the medical education program at FSU, not simply because it increases doctors’ efficiency, but because it can help prevent medical errors and improve the quality of patient care,” Scherger said.
A June 10 special report in the Wall Street Journal titled “Health Care Goes Digital” leads off with the statement that “The health-care industry finally has little choice: It has to get wired.”

“A number of factors, including mounting evidence that information technology helps hospitals save lives, have come together to make hanging back no longer an option for doctors and hospitals,” wrote Wall Street Journal assistant managing editor Laura Landro.

While about 80 percent of medical schools nationwide train students in simulated clinics where actors portray patients, the Clinical Learning Center at FSU is the first to deploy a system that enables students to enter and retrieve patient information using an electronic medical record system.

The system, called Practice Partner, is a product of Physician Micro Systems Inc., a leading medical software company based in Seattle.

“We are teaching students from day one how to practice medicine using the best information technology available,” said Nancy Clark, director of medical informatics education at FSU. “This includes not only electronic medical records, but also handheld and laptop computers and the use of Internet-based and other electronic resources in clinical decision-making.”

Along with medical information technology, the Clinical Learning Center focuses on teaching patient communication skills, or what some people call “bedside manner,” said Sarah Sherraden, the center’s director.
“The overriding goal of all the courses that use the Clinical Learning Center is to instill not only the science, but also the art of medicine in our students,” Sherraden said. “By teaching students in a controlled environment and recording their patient encounters on digital video, we can give them important feedback on how to talk to a patient and develop a partnership with the patient that is focused on the patient’s overall well-being.”

CONTACT: Browning Brooks
644-4030
October 17, 2002

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida State University College of Medicine today became the first new medical school in the country to receive the approval of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education since 1982.

Meeting in Washington, D.C., the LCME, the nationally recognized accrediting authority for education programs leading to the M.D. degree, voted to grant FSU’s medical school initial provisional accreditation based on the school’s second application.

The FSU College of Medicine welcomed an inaugural class of 30 students in May 2001, and a second class of 40 students in May of 2002.

“This is an exciting moment, not only for FSU, but also in the history of medical education,” said College of Medicine Dean Joseph E. Scherger. “As the first new medical school in a generation, we have an opportunity to build a 21st century program from the ground up, and gaining initial provisional accreditation signifies that we have laid a solid foundation.”

Accreditation means that national standards for structure, function and performance are met by a medical school's education program. Initial provisional accreditation is the first step toward full accreditation, which requires completion of a multiple-year process that includes several on-site surveys by members of the LCME.

All of the rights and privileges that apply to fully accredited medical schools, their graduates and their students also apply to the FSU College of Medicine under provisional accreditation status.

Provisional accreditation makes the school eligible for federal grants for medical education and makes students eligible for federal student loan programs and armed forces scholarships. It also entitles the medical school to membership in the Association of American Medical Colleges and participation in the American Medical College Application Service, a centralized system through which students can apply to multiple medical schools.

Students and graduates of LCME-accredited medical schools are eligible to take the United States Medical Licensing Examination, and students are eligible for membership in the American Medical Association’s student section. Graduates are eligible to enter residencies approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Graduating from an LCME-accredited U.S. school and passing the national licensing examinations are accepted as prerequisites for medical licensure in most states.

Based in Tallahassee, the FSU College of Medicine has established regional medical school campuses for the clinical education of third- and fourth-year students in Orlando, Pensacola and Tallahassee and plans to establish future campuses in Jacksonville, Sarasota and Ft. Myers.

The Florida Legislature created the medical school in 2000 and charged it with educating physicians to serve the state’s rural, geriatric and other medically underserved populations. In addition to focusing on this mission, FSU’s medical school is fast becoming a leading innovator in medical education, particularly in the use of medical information technology in clinical training.

CONTACT:
Dr. Richard Usatine
(850) 644-7434

By Jill Elish
December 2002

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-Yoga may be one of the hottest fitness trends sweeping the country, but a Florida State University medical educator thinks it also may be the prescription for ailments ranging from headaches to heart disease.

Dr. Richard Usatine, associate dean of medical education at the FSU College of Medicine, is the co-author, along with yoga therapist Larry Payne, of "Yoga Rx," (2002, Broadway Press), a new book that offers step-by-step programs to promote health, wellness and healing for common ailments.

"Yoga can be as important as any medication," Usatine said. "This is a lifestyle change. This is a way to improve the quality of your life."

For each type of ailment, Usatine and Payne recommend prescriptions that combine a specific yoga routine with common-sense suggestions, such as dietary changes, exercise and getting enough sleep. For example, those suffering from asthma may want to try walking as well as a yoga routine that includes the positions of "wing and prayer," "the newspaper" and "seated chair twist." Depressed? The authors say the "mountain posture," "cobra" and the "sitting cat" may help to lift your spirits. Anxiety? Heartburn? Migraines? There's a remedy for these and just about every other common malady.

Usatine, a family physician who first tried yoga in college, often recommended yoga and yoga breathing techniques to patients to help them manage stress and even quit smoking. In 1997, after suffering recurring back pain after a car accident, he was referred to Payne for yoga therapy. His back pain disappeared, and the pair began collaborating on providing yoga therapy education to medical students at the University of California at Los Angeles.

The pair then began to work on the book, believed to be the first for the general public that combines a medical doctor's point of view with a yoga therapist's. While the authors are careful to note that "Yoga Rx" is not meant to replace modern medical treatment, they assert that yoga therapy can complement medical treatment. They say patients should see considerable results within a couple of weeks and significant changes within three months.

In the meantime, yoga therapy is gaining more attention in the medical community, according to Usatine.

"As more Americans are doing yoga and asking about it, there is more medical awareness of it," he said. "As the number of yoga therapists grows and the demand for it from patients grows, yoga will become a larger part of the practice of medicine in this country."

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

Dec. 13, 2002

The first group of medical students assigned to Florida State University's newly established Regional Medical School Campus - Orlando will be in Orlando Dec. 17 to meet some of the local physicians who will be their teachers.

The 12 students will meet their future clinical faculty and other members of the Orlando medical community at an open house at the medical school's recently opened Orlando offices. The students have one semester remaining in Tallahassee before relocating to Orlando in July for two years of clinical rotations.

"It won't be long before our students begin showing up in local doctors' offices and hospitals," said Anthony J. Costa, M.D., assistant dean for the Orlando campus. "We've hired some of the Orlando area's best physicians to oversee our students' clinical rotations, and they are eager to get started."

Clinical faculty from the Orlando campus have traveled to Tallahassee in recent months for a series of workshops to help familiarize them with the medical school's curriculum and how it is delivered and to develop their teaching skills.

Students and faculty will be available for media interviews at:

1- 5 P.M.
TUESDAY, DEC. 17
FSU REGIONAL MEDICAL SCHOOL CAMPUS - ORLANDO

415 BRIERCLIFF DRIVE

ORLANDO

The FSU College of Medicine accepted its first students in 2001 and was accredited in October 2002. Its first students will graduate in 2005. When the medical school reaches full capacity, as many as 40 students at a time (20 third-year students and 20 fourth-year students) will be assigned to the Orlando campus. In the Orlando area, FSU's medical school is affiliated with Florida Hospital and Orlando Regional Medical Center.

CONTACT: Dr. Lawrence G. Abele
(850) 644-1765

By Browning Brooks
Jan. 28, 2003

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-Florida State University announced today that Dr. J. Ocie Harris, the current associate dean for Clinical Affairs at the College of Medicine, has been named dean.

Harris succeeds Dr. Joseph E. Scherger, who was reassigned today to the College of Medicine faculty.
Alma Littles, an award-winning family physician with roots in rural Gadsden County, will be appointed associate dean of the college.

The changes come as the college prepares for an accreditation site visit from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

"After several discussions over the past few months with Dr. Scherger about leadership within the college, I concluded that we needed a change at this time," said Provost and Executive Vice President Lawrence G. Abele.

Harris was a professor of medicine, associate dean for Community-Based Programs and the director of the North Florida Area Health Education Centers Program at the University of Florida College of Medicine until Nov. 1, 2000, when he came to FSU. He earned his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Mississippi at Jackson in 1965 and completed his internship, residency and a fellowship in pulmonary and infectious disease at the University of Florida.

For two years beginning in 1969, he served as a lieutenant commander at the U.S. Naval Hospital in San Diego, Calif. He began his career in academe as an assistant professor of medicine at Louisiana State University in 1971 before being hired at the University of Florida in 1973.

At Florida State, Harris has been instrumental in establishing the medical school's community based clinical training sites and recruiting faculty to conduct the education program.

Littles, named Family Doctor of the Year by the Florida Academy of Family Physicians in 1993, had a solo private practice in her hometown of Quincy, Fla., from 1989 to 1994 and went on to serve as medical director for Quincy Family Practice and Quincy Medical Group.

Littles came to FSU in August 2002 from Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, where she had served as director of the Family Practice Residency Program since 1999 and had been a member of the faculty since 1996.

Board certified in family practice, Littles has held a number of leadership positions in both the Florida Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians and served as president of the Capital Medical Society in 1996. She earned her doctor of medicine degree from the University of Florida in 1986.

The new allopathic college was established by the Florida Legislature in May 2000 to educate physicians who are responsive to community needs, especially through service to elderly, rural and other underserved populations of Florida. The LCME granted the college initial provisional accreditation in October 2002.

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

Feb. 4, 2003

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-The Florida State University College of Medicine broke ground today on a 270,000-square-foot complex of buildings that will be the school's new home starting next year.

The $60 million complex on the northwest corner of the FSU campus will consist of an education and administration building, which includes facilities for first- and second-year medical education, a research building and an auditorium.
"This new facility represents the first opportunity in more than 20 years to build an entirely new medical school from the ground up," said College of Medicine Dean J. Ocie Harris, M.D.

"It will offer the latest in medical information technology and wireless communications to keep our students on the cutting edge."

The three new medical school buildings will surround a cloister garden and will follow the Jacobean architecture of the historic core of the FSU campus. They will be built in phases over the next two years, with the education and administration building expected to be complete by next summer.

The medical school then will begin moving out of its current facilities in the renovated buildings previously occupied by FSU's Developmental Research School. Gradually, all of the buildings that once housed the school known as "Florida High" will be torn down to make way for the phased construction of the research building and the auditorium.

The technologically rich interior space of the new buildings will feature wireless Internet capabilities throughout and classrooms outfitted with state-of-the-art electronics for classroom presentations, videoconferencing and distance learning. Eight student communities, each accommodating 30 students, will provide a learning environment that promotes teamwork and small-group study.

The new Clinical Learning Center, a simulated clinic designed for teaching patient communication and basic clinical skills, will include 14 patient rooms outfitted with the latest digital recording equipment and medical information technology resources, including an electronic medical record system.

The research building will house 48 high-tech laboratories for the advancement of research in biomedical science, geriatrics, rural health, patient safety and many other areas.

A 300-seat auditorium, 150-seat lecture hall and several classrooms for 40-60 students will accommodate the estimated 240 students who eventually will be located on the main campus at any given time. The medical school currently has 30 second-year students and 40 first-year students. A third class will be admitted in May.

Third- and fourth-year education will take place in community settings at the school's regional campuses in Orlando, Pensacola and Tallahassee.

Project architects are Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum Inc., in association with Elliot Marshall Innes, PA. Construction is a joint venture of Centex Rooney Construction Co. and LLT Building Corporation.