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June 9, 2005
by Nancy Kinnally

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.- Outreach programs at the Florida State University College of Medicine have played a key role in the admission of a remarkably diverse first-year medical school class – one in which minorities and women are both in the majority.

Of the 80 students in the medical school’s Class of 2009, which began classes this week, 51.3 percent are from minority populations, 62.5 percent are female, 28.6 percent are nontraditional (older) and 15 percent are from rural or disadvantaged backgrounds.

A full 20 percent of the students in the new first-year class are from ethnic groups identified by the Association of American Medical Colleges as underrepresented minorities, which include African-American, Mexican-American, mainland Puerto Rican and Native American students. By comparison, about 11 percent of medical students in the United States are underrepresented minorities, according to a 2002 report by the AAMC.

Out of the 224 students now enrolled in the medical school’s four classes, 41 percent are non-white, and 17 percent are underrepresented minorities.

“We can attribute much of our success in attracting such a diverse student population to our institutional culture and to our outreach programs,” said Dr. J. Ocie Harris, dean of the College of Medicine. “More than just recruiting traditionally underrepresented students, we have put in place a pipeline program to increase the pool of applicants from underserved communities, such as rural and inner-city areas.”

The medical school’s outreach programs began in 1994 under FSU’s Program in Medical Sciences, a first-year medical school program operated in conjunction with the University of Florida that preceded the creation of the FSU College of Medicine. The programs begin in middle school and continue through the postbaccalaureate level. They include science classes for middle and high school students, and after-school programs such as tutoring, mentoring, test preparation, and hands-on experience in physician offices.

Uchenna Ikediobi is among the nine members of the new class who participated in the medical school’s outreach programs.

Ikediobi began in the SSTRIDE outreach program during her freshman year at Rickards High School in Tallahassee and enrolled this week at the medical school after eight years in the program, first as a student and later as a mentor. The pre-college component of the medical school’s outreach programs, SSTRIDE stands for Science Students Together Reaching Instructional Diversity and Excellence.

“After all the FSU College of Medicine has invested in my success, I couldn’t be happier to be a student here,” Ikediobi said.

Five of the new students came directly from the medical school’s Bridge Program, which targets students from medically underserved rural and inner-city populations and offers them the chance to spend a post-baccalaureate year preparing for medical school studies.

“I’m grateful for the Bridge Program here at the FSU College of Medicine,” said first-year medical student Erica Lindsay, who went through the program last year. “It has given me the opportunity to explore and reach a level of potential and confidence within myself that I didn’t even know I possessed, and I believe I will be a better physician because of it.”

CONTACT
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By Meredith Brodeur
July 5, 2005

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.- The first group of Florida State University medical students to be assigned to the school’s new Sarasota campus arrive this week for their orientation.

Students, campus administrators, faculty members, and representatives from participating hospitals will be available for interviews at:

11 A.M., THURSDAY, JULY 7

FSU COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

REGIONAL MEDICAL SCHOOL CAMPUS – SARASOTA

201 COCOANUT AVENUE

IN THE HISTORIC WEISSGERBER/FAMIGLIO HOUSE

The nine students will complete the third and fourth years of their medical education in the Sarasota area before going on to residency programs. More than 100 local physicians will be involved in training FSU medical students.

While in Sarasota, students will complete clinical rotations in a variety of community-based settings, including private practices, ambulatory care facilities and hospitals. Locally, the medical school is affiliated with Doctors Hospital of Sarasota and Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Required rotations are in internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, geriatrics, emergency medicine, surgery and obstetrics and gynecology. Students also complete fourth-year electives in various specialties.

After completing their first two years of medical school in Tallahassee on the university’s main campus, FSU medical students complete their clinical training at regional campuses in Orlando, Pensacola, Sarasota or Tallahassee. Eventually, as many as 40 medical students will be assigned to the Sarasota campus.

The FSU College of Medicine was established in 2000 by the Florida Legislature and graduated its first class in May 2005. It currently has 223 medical students and five Ph.D. students enrolled.

CONTACT
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.- Health care for the elderly in northern Florida, southern Alabama and southern Georgia is about to get better through a new $2 million Geriatric Education Center involving departments at Florida State University, Florida A&M University and the University of South Alabama.

Older patients are the highest users of health care services, medications, nursing home stays and hospitalizations, and yet health-care providers of all types have received inadequate training in geriatrics.

Each of the three states involved in the new GEC has fewer geriatricians per capita than the national average. And like the rest of the country, the region faces severe shortages of nurse practitioners, pharmacists, social workers and other allied health professionals with special training in geriatrics.

“While it is unlikely there will ever be enough geriatric specialists in every field of health care, an achievable goal is to ensure that all providers have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to provide quality care for older people,” said Dr. Kenneth Brummel-Smith, GEC project director and the Charlotte Edwards Maguire professor and chair in the FSU College of Medicine’s department of geriatrics.

Funded by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, Geriatric Education Centers serve local communities by strengthening multi-disciplinary training of health professionals in assessment, chronic disease syndromes, care planning and cultural competence unique to older Americans.

Since 1985, GECs nationwide have trained more than 450,000 health care professionals from all disciplines to better serve the rapidly expanding older adult population.

The FSU College of Medicine department of geriatrics led a collaborative effort with other colleges, schools and departments at FSU, FAMU and USA to obtain the five-year grant.

Together, the consortium will provide training in geriatrics for providers in professions such as medicine, nursing, pharmacy, rehabilitation therapies and social work.

About 35 funded Geriatric Education Centers are operating in the United States, including two in Florida, which are located at the University of Miami and the University of South Florida.

FSU’s Live Oak GEC will differ from the others by focusing on health-care providers that serve rural and urban underserved and minority elders. In addition to the Panhandle and the areas of Georgia and Alabama bordering the Panhandle, training will take place through the regional campuses of FSU’s College of Medicine in Orlando, Pensacola and Tallahassee and is expected to expand to the new medical school’s new Sarasota campus.

While initially the GEC will seek to educate faculty in the participating institutions, ultimately these trained faculty will help strengthen the geriatrics expertise of other providers in their own local health-care communities.

In particular, the FSU College of Medicine will be offering expanded geriatrics training opportunities to affiliated community physicians in all specialties and to other health-care professionals at the regional campuses.

FSU’s participating departments include the lead institution, the College of Medicine, as well as the School of Nursing and the College of Social Work. In addition, faculty from the department of food, nutrition, and exercise sciences of the College of Human Sciences, the department of communication disorders, the College of Information, and the Pepper Institute for Aging and Social Policy are involved.

Partners from FAMU are the School of Allied Health Sciences and the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The partner at the University of South Alabama is the College of Nursing.

Brummel-Smith previously served as the medical director of the Oregon Health Sciences University GEC and as president of the American Geriatrics Society. Dr. Alice Pomidor, associate project director, is an associate professor of geriatrics at FSU and previously served as primary faculty in the Western Reserve GEC in Ohio.

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Phone: (850) 645-1255

August 22, 2005
by Nancy Kinnally

Clinical Training to Take Place at Thomasville Hospital

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The Florida State University College of Medicine is joining forces with Archbold Medical Center in an agreement through which a number of medical students will receive their clinical training in Thomasville, Ga.

College of Medicine Dean J. Ocie Harris today announced that Archbold and the college have signed an affiliation agreement that allows FSU's third- and fourth-year medical students to train at the Thomasville hospital.

FSU medical students will begin clinical rotations at Archbold next July.

"It gives us great pleasure to welcome Archbold to our system of affiliates," Harris said. "Archbold has an outstanding regional reputation, an 80-year legacy of service to the region, excellent facilities and top-notch doctors, and we know they will provide wonderful learning opportunities for our students.""We are very proud to be able to provide a site for clinical training in collaboration with the FSU College of Medicine," said Archbold Medical Center President Ken B. Beverly. "We've been very impressed with the educational program the college has put together, and this joint effort is certainly in line with other strategic alliances we have with other area colleges and schools that are helping solve the problem of health manpower shortages across this region."

Practicing physicians at the college's affiliated institutions and in doctors' offices throughout the region will train students in each of eight required clinical areas - family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, obstetrics-gynecology, geriatrics, psychiatry and emergency medicine - as a well as other specialties offered as fourth-year electives.

With the addition of Archbold Medical Center, the FSU College of Medicine has affiliation agreements with 14 hospitals and hospital systems. All are in Florida except Archbold, which is the college's only clinical training affiliate in Georgia.

October 2005
by Nancy Kinnally

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.- The FSU College of Medicine has joined forces with the university’s Honors Program to establish a B.S./M.D. program that will be open to five students annually beginning in fall 2006.

The program will allow eligible FSU honors students to pursue a B.S. degree of their choice while also participating in the Medical Scholars Program, which will include a seminar, mentorship program and required premed courses and experiences.

Students participating in the program will be eligible for early admission to the FSU College of Medicine upon completion of premed requirements, making it possible to graduate with B.S. and M.D. degrees in seven years.

“This will help FSU attract more of the brightest premed students,” said Paul Cottle, director of the Honors Program. “The medical school can really serve as a magnet for those students who can help FSU advance as a research institution.”

Myra Hurt, associate dean for research and graduate programs in the College of Medicine, said the program also will encourage the top premed students at FSU to stay put for their medical education.

“They’ll be able to see first-hand the College of Medicine’s superior offerings in research, education, clinical experience and community service,” Hurt said.

Applications and program details will be available Nov. 1 from the FSU Honors Office, (850)644-1841, honors@fsu.edu, or on the Web at http://honors.fsu.edu.

by Jill Elish

NCH Healthcare System will help Florida State University's College of Medicine establish a training program focusing on rural health in Immokalee, Fla., an area that is home to many poor farm and migrant workers.

FSU President T.K. Wetherell and NCH Chief Executive Officer Edward A. Morton signed a letter of intent in which the NCH Healthcare System will donate the 28,000-square-foot Isabel Collier Read Building, its underlying land and adjacent parking areas to the FSU Foundation to house the new program. The program will offer primary health care services to the community and provide educational experiences to FSU medical students.

"We are most appreciative of this gift," Wetherell said. "This will give FSU the opportunity to provide some needed services to an underserved area, while at the same time giving our students tremendous experience. It's a win-win situation for the community and the university." 

Morton agreed.

"Such a program will provide an excellent educational opportunity for students, while at the same time providing an additional avenue for the Immokalee community to access healthcare services closer to home," he said. "We welcome the opportunity to participate with FSU in this cause. We believe that NCH's involvement will provide a unique opportunity for medical education in this diverse county."

The program, which is designed with the expectation of state funding to operate the center, has the support of the Collier County area legislative delegation. FSU will ask the Florida Legislature for $2.2 million in recurring funds to operate the center and a one-time allocation of $5 million to renovate the facility. Wetherell will meet with the delegation to finalize the budget request for the project.

"In addition to the academic and health care components, this will bring an economic development incentive to an underserved part of the state," Wetherell said. "We are bringing professional staff, students and significant operating and construction budgets to Immokalee. This program will have a positive impact on this community in so many ways."

The proposal calls for FSU medical students, along with students from other academic areas such as nursing, social work and psychology, to work with the local health care community. The College of Medicine will provide a faculty member on site to supervise the educational program and work with local physicians who will serve as clinical faculty.

When the program is fully implemented, selected medical students will fulfill several of the required third-year clinical clerkships at the teaching site. In addition, students from the medical school's four regional campuses throughout the state will have the opportunity to do rural health rotations in Immokalee.

"We are excited about this project because it is consistent with our mission, which focuses on the needs of rural, elderly and other underserved populations, and it enables us to provide innovative educational experiences," said College of Medicine Dean J. Ocie Harris. "We look forward to working with Naples Community Hospital, the local medical community and Collier Health Services Inc. to bring this program to fruition."

FSU College of Medicine will affiliate with the NCH Healthcare System and its medical staff to provide the required educational experiences that cannot be provided at the Immokalee site. Physicians on NCH staff will be given the opportunity to apply for an FSU College of Medicine faculty appointment. FSU will develop elective rotations at the NCH Healthcare System facilities including Naples Community Hospital and North Collier Hospital for Students.

In return, FSU will provide the NCH Healthcare System with 5,000 square feet of space in the Isabel Collier Read Building to use for medical or medically related charitable purposes.

CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255; Doug.Carlson@med.fsu.edu
By Doug Carlson

February 6, 2006

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A comprehensive Florida State University study of information technology use in acute care hospitals is the first to reveal an overall financial benefit associated with hospital investments in IT.

The study appearing in the January-February issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management shows that hospitals improve their bottom line, and could help control spiraling health-care costs, with greater use of IT systems.

“The implications for a capital-starved industry are enormous,’’ said health-care industry analyst Perry T. White in an accompanying commentary published in the journal.

“The fact that the higher performing organizations in the study without fail showed higher levels of IT adoption is a clanging bell to those organizations that have lagged behind the standards of our industry,’’ wrote White, who is senior manager at Pershing, Yoakley and Associates in Birmingham, Ala.

The study, funded by the Florida Legislature, suggests that hospital CEOs should look at the long-term benefits of investing in technology.

“Our findings illuminate a positive and significant relationship between IT use and numerous measures of financial performance across Florida hospitals,’’ wrote lead author Nir Menachemi, assistant professor and director of the Center on Patient Safety at the Florida State University College of Medicine.

At a time when hospitals are seeking ways to curb expenses, some CEOs are reluctant to commit to costly investments in new or better technological systems — even those that have been shown to improve patient safety — without a clear idea on whether or not it makes good financial sense to do so.

Menachemi’s study combines publicly available financial data with information on IT adoption from 82 Florida hospitals. His team’s analysis breaks down IT investments into three categories that affect various aspects of hospital operations: administrative, clinical and strategic.

Administrative operations included those IT systems used in billing, payroll and supply chain management. Clinical operations included pharmacy and laboratory, computerized physician order entry and electronic health records. Strategic operations involved systems used for managed care, nurse staffing and executive information. Menachemi found improved financial performance in each of the categories individually and again when they were viewed collectively.

CONTACT
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By Nancy Kinnally
March 16, 2006

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.- Thirty-five of the 36 students in the graduating Class of 2006 of the Florida State University College of Medicine received notification today of where they will enter residency training this summer after graduation.

Twenty of the 36 graduating students, or 56 percent, are entering residency in primary-care specialties, including family medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine and obstetrics/gynecology.

Other students matched in general surgery, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology (head and neck surgery), anesthesiology, plastic surgery, aerospace/flight surgery and radiology.

The 36th member of the graduating class will be completing a Research Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.

Nineteen of the students, or 53 percent, will remain in Florida for their graduate medical education. On average about 40 percent of students graduating from allopathic medical schools in Florida remain in the state for residency training, due in part to a limited number of available residency positions in state.

Of those matching outside of Florida, students matched in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, New York, Illinois, Nevada, and Washington, DC. Three students matched in military programs.

The residency match, conducted annually by the National Residency Matching Program, is the primary system that matches applicants to residency programs with available positions at U.S. teaching hospitals. Graduating medical students across the country receive their match information at the same time on the same day.

CONTACT
Phone: (850) 645-1255

Mike Burke, Sacred Heart Health System
(850)416-6304

April 11, 2006

PENSACOLA, Fla. – The partnership between Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola and the Florida State University College of Medicine has expanded to include the medical school’s sponsorship of Sacred Heart’s residency programs in obstetrics and gynecology and in pediatrics.

The two institutions have been partners since 2003, when FSU’s inaugural class of medical students first began training in the Pensacola area.

The hospital’s obstetrics-gynecology residency program was established in 1964, and the pediatrics residency program began in 1969. The pediatric residency program provides three years of training to young physicians who want to specialize in pediatrics, while the Ob/Gyn residency program is a four-year program. The residency programs are based at Sacred Heart Children’s and Women’s Hospital.

The programs have operated since 1995 under the sponsorship of the University of Florida College of Medicine. The transfer of sponsorship of the programs to FSU will be completed in June.

Due to the presence of FSU’s regional medical school campus in Pensacola and the distance between UF and the residency programs, it made sense to both medical schools and to the hospital for FSU to assume sponsorship of the programs.

“We are very excited about consolidating and expanding all our physician training programs through our affiliation with the FSU College of Medicine,” said Dr. Paul Baroco, chief medical officer for Sacred Heart Health System. “Sacred Heart will be exploring the addition of more residency programs to train physicians in internal medicine and general surgery. We believe our status as a teaching hospital helps to keep us on the cutting edge of medicine. These programs also benefit the community by training young physicians, many of whom will want to remain here to serve the people of Northwest Florida.”

Under the new affiliation, both the residency faculty and the residents will become employees of FSU. They will also gain full access to the medical school’s extensive Charlotte Edwards Maguire Medical Library, more than 90 percent of which is accessible online.

Residents in the two programs who complete their training this June will graduate as UF residents, while the hospital’s other current and future residents will graduate as FSU residents.

The pediatrics residency program has a total of 18 residents while the obstetrics-gynecology program has 12 residents. The two programs have a total of 70 faculty and staff. The obstetrics-gynecology program is under the direction of Dr. Clyde Dorr, and the pediatrics residency program is under the direction of Dr. Edward Kohaut. Dr. Alma Littles, associate dean for academic affairs at the FSU College of Medicine, is the designated institutional official responsible for oversight of the medical school’s sponsorship of the programs.

Dr. J. Ocie Harris, dean of the FSU College of Medicine, views the medical school’s involvement with residency training at Sacred Heart as a welcomed addition to the continuum of education offered by the medical school.

“Many of the residency program faculty at Sacred Heart already had faculty appointments with the FSU College of Medicine for the clinical training of our medical students,” Harris said. “Now, we have two programs in which FSU students, residents and faculty are working together.”

Paul Payne and Chris Sundstrom, two members of the medical school’s Class of 2006, which will graduate May 20, will begin their residency training at Sacred Heart in obstetrics-gynecology in July.

CONTACT
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April 2005
by Jennifer Schmidt

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.- Research shows that the rate of clinical depression among dementia caregivers ranges from 27 to 50 percent, making them the most distressed among the caregiver population.

That’s why Robert Glueckauf, professor of medical humanities and social sciences at the Florida State University College of Medicine, has created the Alzheimer’s Rural Care Healthline. ARCH is a three-phase program designed to determine the extent to which support and education provided via telephone can improve the quality of life of Alzheimer’s caregivers.

The program is now open to rural Alzheimer’s caregivers in North Florida and will eventually expand to other parts of the state. To participate, caregivers can simply call the project’s toll-free “healthline” at
(866) 778-ARCH.

During the initial phase of the project, focus groups in rural areas of the Florida Panhandle targeted health-care providers and church leaders in order to assess local caregivers’ level of education about Alzheimer’s and their skills for dealing with the disease. They also explored methods for soliciting referrals from rural health providers, elder care agencies and churches.

This phase of their study revealed themes of strong commitment to the community and respect for privacy.

“Dementia caregivers in rural communities have seen health-care projects come and go. They want to know that ARCH is firmly committed to helping local caregivers and working closely with local providers,” Glueckauf said.

Caregivers also expressed a strong desire to help shape the program to meet their needs, and that’s exactly what ARCH plans to do.

The second phase of the study involves dementia care workshops, which are open to rural health-care providers, caregivers and anyone affected by Alzheimer’s. The workshops provide an overview of who is at risk for Alzheimer’s, diagnostic methods, current treatments and the psychosocial and health consequences on both the patient and the caregiver.

Attendees are asked to refer caregivers to the toll-free number for telephone-based intervention for depression, the third phase of the project. The telephone intervention consists of 12 weekly sessions, including seven group sessions on relaxation, problem-solving skills and stress management and five individual caregiver goal-setting and implementation sessions.

Those participating in the study will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: skill building or routine education and support. Participants receiving routine education and support will have the option of taking the skill-building program after they complete the study.

Recent research has shown that skill-building interventions for Alzheimer’s caregivers delivered in hospital or health care settings lead to emotional and psychological improvements, including reduced caregiver burden and depression, and that these improvements are greater than those obtained from usual medical care. The question that Glueckauf plans to address is whether the same results can be obtained over the telephone in the homes of rural caregivers. If the program works, it will provide a convenient, low-cost alternative for distressed rural caregivers.

Glueckauf hopes to extend the ARCH program to all of Florida and help improve the quality of life of Alzheimer’s caregivers and their loved ones with the condition.

ARCH is a joint project between FSU and Florida A&M University. It is funded by the Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer’s Center & Research Institute and is sponsored by the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, North Florida Area Agency on Aging, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital Memory Disorder Clinic and the Alzheimer’s Resource Center of Tallahassee.