CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

By Abby Cruz
March 5, 2003

 
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-The desire to provide medical relief to communities in need is proving contagious at the Florida State University College of Medicine.

Sixteen students and four faculty members, including one from the medical school's Pensacola campus, will dedicate their spring break to serving Panamanian communities with little access to health care. Last year, 10 students, two faculty members and two community physicians went on the trip to Panama.

The project is part of FSUCares, a medical student organization dedicated to providing health services, including medical care, counseling and education, to those who would not otherwise have access to care, both locally and overseas. This year, students raised $8,000 to support their trip to Panama.

FSUCares faculty adviser Elena Reyes said the trip is an educational experience for the students.
"These students are very interested in learning more about the problems faced by culturally diverse and disadvantaged populations," Reyes said.

In preparation for the trip, students collected medications and supplies from community physicians. They will gather at the medical school at noon on Thursday, March 6, to finalize preparations and pack supplies.

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

By Nancy Kinnally
March 24, 2003

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-The Florida State University College of Medicine announced today the establishment of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Center for Rural Health with a $750,000 gift from the Jacksonville-based health plan.

The gift, which is eligible for a $490,000 match from the State of Florida, will fund research projects designed to assess and improve health services for Floridians living in rural areas.

"Rural health is one of the priority areas identified in the mission of the FSU College of Medicine," said College of Medicine Dean J. Ocie Harris, M.D. "In addition to graduating a significant number of physicians who will serve in rural areas, we want to generate solutions to many of the health issues that are unique to rural communities. This new center will help guide that collegewide effort."

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Center for Rural Health will address the special needs of the more than 1 million Floridians living in the state's 33 rural counties, 19 of which are federally designated as medically underserved.

Robert Brooks, M.D., associate dean for health affairs at the College of Medicine, said the center will help the medical school achieve its goal of becoming a national leader in rural health policy and research.

"With these funds we will be able to launch our rural health research program immediately, while having a basis on which to operate for years to come," Brooks said.

The center's first research project will be an analysis of the information technology capabilities of Florida's 29 statutory rural hospitals. Over the next year, researchers will examine the hospitals' use of tools such as electronic medical records, computerized prescribing systems and computer-based infection tracking, all of which can help reduce medical errors and improve patient safety. Researchers from the College of Medicine's Center on Patient Safety, the FSU School of Information Studies and the Center for Rural Health will collaborate on the project.

Wayne NeSmith, President of the Florida Hospital Association, said Florida's rural hospitals provide critically needed services and face special challenges.

"Most rural hospitals operate on very limited margins, but still must respond to demands for better technology and continuously improving systems of care," NeSmith said. "This new center will offer hospitals important tools for meeting this challenge."

Michael Cascone Jr., chairman and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, said the company is honored to work with the FSU College of Medicine to create the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Center for Rural Health.

"Our support is one way we fulfill our mission to advance the health and well-being of Florida's citizens, especially the uninsured and underserved," Cascone said. "We believe programs aimed at health care awareness and training, research and policy initiatives and workforce preparation can make a positive difference in our communities. We look forward to our partnership with Florida State University, a highly respected institution and an integral part of our state's educational system."

Contact: Ron Brafford
March 25, 2003 850 431- 5876

Florida State University, its College of Medicine, and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare will announce the signing of an affiliation agreement through which TMH would work closely with the College of Medicine in the education of medical students. Today's press conference will take place at Tallahassee Memorial's Family Practice Residency Program, 1301 Hodges Drive, at 12:30 p.m.

A key feature of this agreement is the expanded role of the TMH Family Practice Residency Program and its faculty in the education and training of students. The TMH Residency Program becomes affiliated with the FSU College of Medicine and its faculty will be offered faculty appointments. College of Medicine faculty will do some teaching at the Residency Program.

The Family Practice Residency Program is a fully accredited, full-service medical practice as well as a teaching facility. Its mission is to provide outstanding training for Family Practice Residents while providing excellent patient care.

"The process was easy and pleasant," said Duncan Moore, President/CEO of TMH. "We met first with Dr. Wetherell, then with Dr. Harris. We both quickly identified our areas of common interest and then crafted our affiliation agreement. TMH looks forward to a long, positive relationship with the FSU College of Medicine."

"We are pleased to get this accomplished," said Dr. Ocie Harris, FSU's College of Medicine dean. "TMH has much to offer and we are pleased to add it to our list of hospital teaching centers located elsewhere in Florida."

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

June 4, 2003
By Nancy Kinnally

Known mostly for raising timber, the town of Perry, Fla., population 7,000, is proving that with the right approach, rural communities can also grow their own doctors.

With full scholarships from Doctors’ Memorial Hospital in Perry, three Florida State University medical students are setting out to do something no one else from their hometown has done in 50 years – earn a medical degree and return to Perry to practice.

Joda Lynn, a third-generation Perry native, was the first student admitted to the FSU College of Medicine. Lynn will graduate in 2005, followed in 2006 by Shannon Price and in 2007 by Josef Plum, who recently began his first semester.
Doctors’ Memorial Hospital CEO Jim McKnight said the hospital is investing about $60,000 per student over four years of medical school. In return, the students will be obligated to practice in Perry for at least four years.

Perry is located in Taylor County, one of 21 Florida counties that are federally designated as medically underserved, primarily due to a lack of physicians. Local voters passed a 1-cent sales tax in 1999 to build a state-of-the-art 48-bed replacement hospital, which opened two weeks ago.

“If you’re in hospital administration, you have to solve your problems today and make the bottom line come out, but we took a more long-term approach to solving those problems, and that was to recruit our own, train our own, and bring them back here,” McKnight said.

“It makes a lot of sense because currently we spend anywhere from $200,000 to $300,000 to recruit a physician, and in some cases they stay three or four years and they leave. We can educate four medical students for that amount of dollars.”

For Lynn, the scholarship will make it easier for him to pursue the goal he’d already set out for himself – to practice medicine in his hometown.

“I think it’s going to be like a domino effect for other hospitals in the state in small towns and rural communities to start up similar programs,” Lynn said.

“What can be better than helping the people in your community, and then in return for doing that, they’re going to come back and help make that community better? I think it’s a good investment for the hospital to bring in good physicians, and a good investment for the community to ensure the quality of their health care in the future.”

Dr. J. Ocie Harris, dean of the FSU College of Medicine, hopes more rural hospitals around the state recognize the cost-effectiveness of funding local medical students, as opposed to paying dearly to recruit doctors who may or may not like the small-town lifestyle.

“Our mission is to educate physicians who will work with medically underserved populations,” Harris said. “That’s why partnerships with institutions like Doctors’ Memorial Hospital are so important to us, and why we’d like to see others follow their lead.”

Perry native and retired physician Dr. John H. Parker, who celebrated his 50th medical school reunion recently at Tulane, and who was Lynn’s childhood doctor, set up his practice in Perry in 1954. Every other physician who has practiced there since then has come from somewhere else.

Parker knows first-hand how hard it is to recruit young physicians, having participated in efforts to bring doctors to Perry in the 1960s and ‘70s.

“We’ve had (medical students) go, but not come back,” Parker said. He thinks it’s about time local medical students followed in his footsteps.

“It was overdue, you could modestly put it,” Parker said.

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

By Nancy Kinnally
June 18, 2003

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) notified the Florida State University College of Medicine today that it has voted to continue the medical school's provisional accreditation after reviewing the school's third- and fourth-year education program.

An earlier review focusing on the first- and second-year program resulted in the medical school being granted initial provisional accreditation on Oct. 17, 2002.

The committee's most recent report includes praise for the medical school's dean, faculty, staff and students, as well as its use of medical information technology. It also notes that the school's institutional focus on geriatric and community medicine provides "a distinctive opportunity for innovation in medical education."

The report also commended the College of Medicine's outreach programs for recruiting "diverse and disadvantaged students," calling the programs "exemplary."

According to LCME procedures, a new medical school is first eligible for full accreditation during the graduation year of its inaugural class, which for FSU would be during the 2004-2005 academic year. A final review will likely take place at that time.

The medical school admitted its first students in May 2001 and currently has three classes enrolled.

July 7, 2003

The Florida State University College of Medicine is launching its first three regional medical school campuses this week in Tallahassee, Pensacola and Orlando:

Wednesday, July 9, noon
Regional Medical School Campus – Orlando
415 Briercliff Drive, Orlando

Speakers and special guests include:

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer
Orange County Chairman Richard Crotty
J. Ocie Harris, M.D., Dean, FSU College of Medicine
Tony Costa, M.D., Dean, Orlando Campus
Hospital executives, medical students and community leaders
For directions or more information call: (407) 835-4103

Thursday, July 10, noon
Regional Medical School Campus – Pensacola
8880 University Parkway, Pensacola

Speakers and special guests include:

Paul McLeod, M.D., Dean, Pensacola Campus
Coy Irvin, M.D., President, Escambia County Medical Society
C. David Smith, M.D., faculty member
Hospital executives, medical students and community leaders
For directions or more information call: (850) 494-5939

Friday, July 11, 1 p.m.
Regional Medical School Campus – Tallahassee
Medical Practice of Dr. Les Wilson
2009 Miccosukee Rd. 

Media will be able to interview clerkship faculty member Les Wilson, M.D., Eugene Trowers, M.D., Dean of the Tallahassee campus, and Lorna Fedelem, a third-year medical student.

For directions or more information call: (850) 645-1232.

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

By Nancy Kinnally
July 10, 2003

 TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida State University College of Medicine is launching its first three regional medical school campuses this week in Tallahassee, Pensacola and Orlando.

The first new medical school to be established in the United States in 20 years, the FSU College of Medicine also is one of only a few medical schools in the country to operate multiple community-based campuses.

The 30 students in the medical school’s inaugural class are beginning their third-year clinical rotations in doctors’ offices, hospitals and other medical facilities in all three cities and surrounding areas.

Five of the students will spend their third and fourth years of medical school at the Tallahassee campus, while 14 have been assigned to the Orlando campus, and 11 to the Pensacola campus.

All 30 students completed their first two years of medical school on the FSU campus in Tallahassee.

In all, more than 250 practicing physicians and 10 hospitals, as well as a number of outpatient facilities, have been selected to participate in the clinical education of FSU medical students.

In the third and fourth year, FSU medical students train one-on-one with physicians in eight clinical specialties: family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, geriatrics, obstetrics/gynecology, psychiatry, surgery and emergency medicine, as well as a variety of fourth-year electives.

As the medical school’s enrollment continues to increase, as many as 40 students (20 third-year students and 20 fourth-year students) eventually will be assigned each regional campus, and additional campuses in Ft. Myers, Jacksonville and Sarasota will be developed.

“The medical school is a great benefit to our community,” said Richard Morrison, regional vice president of Florida Hospital, one of the medical school’s clinical affiliates. “Not only will it be a prime source for recruiting residents to our family practice teaching program, but it also strengthens our quality of care. Teaching students brings out the best in physicians and hospitals.”

Sharon Roush, CEO of Tallahassee Community Hospital, believes the partnership between the hospital and the medical school will advance health care in the region.

“As we embark on the opening of our new hospital, which, like the medical school, will be equipped with the latest technology, we believe there will be a lasting impact on our area through the training of medical students who will go on to provide quality health care in the communities we serve,” Roush said.

The medical school’s 21st century approach to medicine also is appreciated by the community physicians who have been selected to serve as faculty for the students’ third and fourth years.

“The information technology available through FSU will help students and faculty alike stay abreast of the rapid advancement of medical science,” said Jeff Chicola, M.D., surgery clerkship director for the Pensacola campus.

The college was established in 2000 with a mission of educating physicians to care for Florida’s rural, geriatric, minority, and other medically underserved populations. It received initial accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education in October and recently received another positive review from accreditation officials.

Currently three classes are enrolled at the FSU College of Medicine with a total of 115 students.

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

By Nancy Kinnally
July 30, 2003

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-Florida ranks near the bottom when it comes to having enough doctors certified as specialists in caring for the elderly, a recent study shows, but the Florida State University College of Medicine is out to change that.

One of the nation's most popular retirement destinations, Florida has just 3.4 certified geriatricians for every 10,000 residents over the age of 75, according to a study published this month in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Only six states have fewer geriatrics experts per elderly resident.

The FSU College of Medicine was founded in 2000 with a mission of addressing the state's most pressing physician shortages. The medical school recently became the first in the state - and one of only four in the country - to devote an entire department to geriatric medicine.

"Although older people make up only about 13 percent of the U.S. population, and 18 percent of Florida's, they consume 30 to 40 percent of all health care services and use 36 percent of all drugs prescribed," said Dr. Ken Brummel-Smith, chair of the new department.

"Many physicians spend the majority of time with older patients, and yet still in most medical schools all students have required pediatric rotations but no required geriatric rotation."

In fact, according to a November 2002 report by the Gerontological Society of America and the Merck Institute of Aging and Health, only 14 of the nation's 145 medical schools include geriatrics in their required courses, and only
3 percent of medical students choose geriatrics electives at the 86 medical schools where they are offered.

By contrast, FSU's medical students will experience and study a wide range of aging issues, not just in their required fourth-year geriatrics rotation, but as an integral part of all of their courses.

Former president and chairman of the American Geriatrics Society and the author of several leading geriatrics textbooks, Brummel-Smith is working with other faculty in his department to develop an innovative combination of high-tech and high-touch learning methods to give students new insights into the care of the elderly throughout their four-year education.

Via the Internet, the program links faculty and students at the school's three regional campuses in Tallahassee, Pensacola and Orlando to the school's geriatrics experts and to customized online resources designed to help the students achieve required clinical competencies in the care of the elderly. Topics include how to handle falls, incontinence, dementia, pain management and elder abuse.

Students will be able to post clinical questions to a site that is monitored by one of the department's geriatricians or sit in on an online "Geri-chat," in which students and faculty review and discuss interesting cases the students have seen via an online chat group.

Dr. Jacqueline Lloyd, geriatrics education director, said that having students spread out at the medical school's regional campuses with their varied patient populations gives students a great opportunity to compare notes.

"One of the advantages about having the technology and having students in all kinds of practices all over the state is that they can dialog with each other, and their experiences are multiplied," Lloyd said.

But it's not all about discussing diagnoses and treatment plans. In their second-year Psychosocial Aspects of Medicine course, students were asked to find and interview an elderly person in the community who was an example of successful aging and then post their observations about the encounter to an online bulletin board.

"We seek opportunities to have students encountering older adults in the community, not in acute care hospitals or nursing facilities but anywhere else they might be," Lloyd said.

Medical student Lorna Fedelem, who wants to be a geriatrician, said the exercise taught her a lot about how to approach older patients.

"I have always known that our older generations have so much wisdom and wonderful stories to offer us young people, but a lot of people my age don't see it that way," Fedelem said. "What a shame. They are really missing out."

CONTACT: Nadine Dexter
(850) 644-6683

By Ebonee Rudolph
September 2003

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – FSUCares, a medical student organization devoted to local and international medical outreach, issues a challenge to all area runners and walkers to participate in the 2nd Annual FSUCares 5K Run/Walk and 1 Mile Fun Run on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2003.

The proceeds will support FSUCares and its student members in their mission to offer medical, health education, and counseling services to those who lack access to care. The organization works with local migrant farmers through mobile clinics, conducts preventive screenings at the Homeless Shelter, and assists with a brand-new electronic medical records service with the Apalachee Ridge community.

In the spring of 2004, members will participate in their third annual international medical mission to villages in Panama. The students spend a week providing medical care to local villagers while learning about international medicine and public health, as well as being exposed to a foreign language and culture.

The race is FSUCares’ main fundraiser to help the students provide these services. The expected turnout is more than 200 runners/walkers.

Stefano Bordoli, president of FSUCares, sees this as an exciting way to unite the College of Medicine with other students and community members throughout north Florida.

“With a 5k run and walk, as well as a fun run for all ages, this year’s race will be a community event fit for the entire family,” Bordoli said.

The race will begin at 8 a.m. in front of the Westcott building on Florida State’s campus and finish at Mike Long Track with music, refreshments and free massages to all participants.

By Nancy Kinnally
Oct. 27, 2003

 TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-From rural high school students throughout Florida to families living in poverty in outlying areas of Haiti and Panama, many people will benefit from a $223,000 gift from the Pfizer Foundation to the Florida State University College of Medicine.

"The FSU College of Medicine is committed to supporting programs that expand health-care access, and we are pleased to have Pfizer as our partner in this effort," said Dr. J. Ocie Harris, dean of the medical school. "This grant from the Pfizer Foundation also will support research that will shed light on why some low-income populations don't achieve the same results from their medical care as higher-income populations."

A new initiative that brings rural high school students from throughout the state to FSU during the summer to learn about medical careers is among the programs benefitting from the gift.

In addition, teachers in rural and urban underserved schools will get training and continuing education that will enable them to conduct in-school science electives as part of the medical school's SSTRIDE outreach program, which is designed to channel students from medically underserved rural and inner-city populations into medical school.

The funds also will support FSUCares, a medical student organization dedicated to addressing unmet medical needs, both locally and abroad. The Pfizer Foundation's gift will enable more than 150 medical students to participate in international medical missions to Haiti and Panama over the next three years.

In addition to these outreach efforts, Pfizer is funding research at the medical school that seeks to determine how patients' health literacy affects whether they take their medications properly and whether they succeed in managing their illness. The study will focus on diabetic Medicaid and Medicare patients in the Florida Panhandle.

"The Pfizer Foundation is pleased to support the committed men and women at the Florida State University College of Medicine who are reaching out to help patients in need find a better quality of life," said Chuck Hardwick, president of the Pfizer Foundation and senior vice president, Worldwide Government and Public Affairs, Pfizer Inc. "We expect this to be the beginning of a partnership that will benefit many future physicians and medical students in the years to come."

The Pfizer Foundation Inc. is an independent charitable foundation established by Pfizer Inc. in 1953. The Foundation's mission is to promote access to quality health care and education, to nurture innovation and to support the community involvement of Pfizer people.