Feb. 10, 2011

The Florida State University College of Medicine on Friday will host “Sexuality and Aging,” an event geared toward senior citizens. The event is part of the geriatrics department’s “It’s Never Too Late to Learn” series that brings medical students and elders together in activities to promote active lifestyles leading to positive health outcomes.
 
More than 150 Tallahassee senior citizens, several dozen medical students, including members of the Geriatrics Interest Group, and nearly a dozen community health organizations and sponsors will participate. Among the organizations taking part are the Tallahassee Senior Center, The Area Agency on Aging for North Florida, Thagard Student Health Center, Bond Community Health Center, Department of Elder Affairs, Big Bend Cares Clinic, Pepper Institute on Aging, Leon County Health Department and Homes Instead Senior Care.
 
The event includes free health screenings, demonstrations related to sexuality and aging, and a presentation by Dr. Lisa Granville, professor and associate chair of the department of geriatrics at the College of Medicine. It will be held:
 

FRIDAY, FEB. 11
10 A.M.-1 P.M.
FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

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

CONTACT: Ron Hartung
(850) 645-9205; ronald.hartung@med.fsu.edu

Feb. 15, 2011

FOR THE 10th YEAR, FSUCARES IS SPENDING SPRING BREAK ON MEDICAL OUTREACH TRIPS

If it’s spring break, don’t look for the students of FSUCares on a beach or at a bar. This year, like every year since the Florida State College of Medicine welcomed its first class in 2001, these students will be giving out medical supplies and treatment — and getting a cultural education in return.

On Wednesday, Feb. 16, they will be available for interviews and photos as they pack medical supplies donated by the Tallahassee community. Fourteen first- and second-year College of Medicine students will make the annual trip, along with six faculty members. They will split into three groups: one in Immokalee, southwest Florida; one on the Texas border; and one in a small village in Panama. Spring break is March 7-11.

FSUCares’ mission is to increase outreach to underserved communities, said Elena Reyes, faculty adviser for FSUCares. She also is the director for the “Cross-Cultural Medicine” course, an elective designed to help students develop the knowledge and skills to work with Florida’s underserved Latino community.

“In Panama, we will be working in the clinic that we helped build through donations in the small Filipina village,” Reyes said. “The theme for the 10th-anniversary trip is long-term community partnership through service-learning.” Besides medical supplies, FSUCares also has been collecting gently used clothing for all three sites.

Students will be available for interviews and photos on:

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 16
4:30 – 6:30 P.M.
FSU COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
1115 W. CALL ST., TALLAHASSEE

Directions: From downtown, travel west on Tennessee Street and turn left on Stadium Drive. The College of Medicine is at Stadium and Call Street. Limited press parking will be available by RSVP in a parking lot located off Call between the College of Medicine and the Psychology Building. Additional parking is available in the parking garage at Stadium Drive and Spirit Way.

For more about FSUCares, visit /fsucares/home

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Some of the biggest names in evolutionary medicine will be in Tallahassee Feb. 25 and 26 for an international conference at The Florida State University.

Registration for the conference, “Evolutionary Medicine: Contributions to the Study of Disease and Immunity,” is free and open to the public.

The keynote speakers include one of the founders of the evolutionary medicine field –– Dr. Randolph Nesse of the University of Michigan –– and the co-author of the field’s first textbook, Sir Peter Gluckman of the University of Auckland (New Zealand). 

Also scheduled to speak are Kathleen Barnes, of the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health; Paul Ewald, director of the Evolutionary Medicine Program at the University of Louisville; and Michael Ruse, the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University.

Evolutionary medicine is the application of evolutionary knowledge to the understanding and treatment of health and disease. Nesse has described it this way: “We’re trying to understand why natural selection has not made the body better, why natural selection has left the body with vulnerabilities. For every single disease, there is an answer to that question. And for very few of them is the answer very clear yet.”

“Evolutionary medicine is on the cutting edge of how we think about health and disease,” said Joseph Gabriel, an assistant professor in the FSU College of Medicine and a member of the conference’s organizing committee. “It’s tremendously exciting to have some of the leading experts in the world come to Florida State University to discuss the topic with us.”

Nesse is a professor of psychiatry and psychology and the director of the Evolution and Human Adaptation Program at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. He is the author of “Why We Get Sick” (1995; co-written with the now-late George Williams), the founding document of the field.

Gluckman is a University of Auckland Distinguished Professor and one of New Zealand’s most highly decorated medical scientists. In 2001 he was awarded New Zealand’s highest scientific award, the Rutherford Medal. He served as the first Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and is the founding director of the Liggins Institute, home of the Centre for Human Evolution, Adaptation and Disease. Gluckman is the co-author of “Principles of Evolutionary Medicine,” the first textbook on the topic.

The two-day conference will be held:

FRIDAY, FEB. 25
8:30 – 5:30
AUDITORIUM
FSU COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

AND

SATURDAY, FEB. 26
9:30 – 5:30
ROOM 1024
KING LIFE SCIENCES BUILDING

Register for the conference and find a complete schedule at www.bio.fsu.edu/FowlerII/.

For a map of the Florida State campus, go to http://map.campus.fsu.edu/index.aspx.

Cosponsors of the conference are Florida State’s College of Medicine, Department of Biological Science, and History and Philosophy of Science Program. Support for the event comes from the Frank and Yolande Fowler Endowment in Modern Molecular Biology and the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Endowment Fund.

Few events hold more drama, or have more impact, in the life of a medical student than Match Day. For many, the sealed envelope holds the key to the future.

The residency match is conducted annually by the National Resident Matching Program. It’s the primary system for pairing graduating medical students across the United States with residency programs at teaching hospitals.

At the College of Medicine, 114 students from the Class of 2011 are expected to learn where they will continue their medical education.

Graduating medical students across the country receive their match information at the same time on the same day. The College of Medicine’s ceremony takes place:

Thursday, March 17
12 p.m.
Ruby Diamond Concert Hall
Tallahassee, Fla.

Where are they now? Updated information about College of Medicine alumni.

March 15, 2011

Members of the Florida State University College of Medicine Class of 2011 will find out where they will receive residency training — a defining moment in their medical careers — during a Match Day ceremony on Thursday.

During the ceremony, the students will simultaneously open envelopes, learning for the first time where they will spend the next three to seven years completing training in the medical specialty they will practice. Graduating students at M.D.-granting medical schools across the United States receive their match information at the same time through the National Residency Matching Program, the primary system that matches applicants to residency programs with available positions at U.S. teaching hospitals.

The ceremony will take place:

THURSDAY, MARCH 17
NOON
RUBY DIAMOND CONCERT HALL

The ceremony also will be webcast live. Visit http://www.med.fsu.edu/ for more information.

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

 CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255 or (850) 694-3735; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu
 
By Doug Carlson
March 17, 2011
 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — All 114 students in the Class of 2011 — the seventh and largest class to graduate from the medical school — found out during a Match Day ceremony today where they will enter residency training this summer after graduation.
 
Sixty-one of the graduating students, or 54 percent, are entering residency in primary care specialties, including family medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine and obstetrics/gynecology. Other students matched in anesthesiology, emergency medicine, neurology, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology, pathology, psychiatry, diagnostic radiology, general surgery and urology.
 
“I’m very pleased that once again our students have matched at excellent programs throughout Florida and the rest of the country. We are producing great students who are sought out by the best programs,” said College of Medicine Dean John P. Fogarty. “I am also pleased that the top choices for our students continue to be in primary care and general surgery, consistent with our mission of creating the kind of doctors that Florida needs the most.”
 
At the same time, Fogarty said, the number of students leaving the state for training is a strong indication of the need for more residency programs in Florida.
 
“Partnerships like the one we just established with Tallahassee Memorial Hospital to sponsor an internal medicine residency are critical to meeting Florida’s physician work force needs,” he said.
 
The residency match, conducted annually by the National Resident 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.
# # #
For information about FSU’s Match Day history, visit /alumnifriends/residency-match-day-results
 

To see where past College of Medicine graduates are practicing, visit http://public.med.fsu.edu/alumni/alumni.aspx?class=2005

For five days during the first week in April, the College of Medicine hosted a six-person accreditation survey team representing the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. The important visit took less than a week, but the college’s effort to make a strong impression was years in the making.

The site visit is a key step in the path to reaccreditation. While there are indications that the visit was a success, the process is not complete. The site visit team's findings will be forwarded to the LCME, which possibly will render a decision about the College of Medicine's reaccreditation during a regularly scheduled meeting in Chicago in October.

“While a number of new medical schools have started since we received our initial accreditation in 2005, we are the newest medical school undergoing the reaccreditation process in this century,” said Alma Littles, senior associate dean for medical education and academic affairs.

The survey team was made up of representatives from six medical schools and included two deans, a professor of internal medicine, a fourth-year medical student, a vice dean for academic affairs and an associate dean for medical education.

The team now will produce the report that will serve as the basis for the LCME vote on whether to approve the College of Medicine’s reaccreditation through 2019. In the report, the survey team will describe the College of Medicine’s educational program and account for how well it complies with accreditation standards.“The LCME states, ‘Institutional accreditation assures that medical education takes place in a sufficiently rich environment to foster broad academic purposes,’” Littles said. 

Formal preparations for the site visit began with a committee meeting at the main campus in November 2009, but an argument could be made that preparations actually began as soon as the College of Medicine received its initial full accreditation in February 2005.Since then, the college has opened new regional campuses in Sarasota, Daytona Beach and Fort Pierce and rural clinical training sites in Marianna and Immokalee; graduated six classes; and grown from around 170 medical students to its current full enrollment of 480.

“Celebrating the College of Medicine’s 10th anniversary this past year while reviewing our strategic plan and performing our year-long LCME self-study highlighted how far the medical school has come in our short lifetime,” said John P. Fogarty, who arrived as dean in August 2008.“We have now expanded to full enrollment, fully opened and succeeded at our regional campuses and rural sites, and built a strong research portfolio since the last LCME site visit in 2004.”

The 18-month round of formal preparations leading up to the April 3-7 site visit were devoted to compiling a medical education database used as the basis for performing an institutional self-study.

“The institutional self-study is one of the most important activities we undertake as a College of Medicine,” Littles said. “More than 100 individuals participated directly in our self-study process, and more than 1,000 faculty members and students responded to surveys that were implemented as a part of that process. Five subcommittees and an independent student self-study committee collected more than 1,300 pages of data, responding to the 125 LCME accreditation standards.” 

The database mailed to the LCME in February was packed into eight boxes and weighed more than 300 pounds. Those boxes contained plenty of success stories that should carry some weight with the survey team.

“Our graduation and match statistics, our strong board scores and student performance with our community model, and the impacts we are having across the state have validated that this model is working and working very well,” Fogarty said. “We appreciated having an opportunity to share examples of that success with our site visitors."

In addition to spending 2½ days at the main campus, the survey team split up for visits to regional campuses in Tallahassee, Daytona Beach and Pensacola, along with an afternoon at the rural clinical training site in Marianna. The team met with students from the main campus and from the regional campuses, faculty, administrators, staff, clerkship directors and clerkship faculty.

Accreditation procedures
 

PRESS RELEASE

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY CONTACTS:
Mark Kasper, director, Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine; (850) 644-1829 or mkasper@fsu.edu
Rob Wilson, Athletics; (850) 644-5678 or rlwilson@fsu.edu
Doug Carlson, College of Medicine; (850) 645-1255 or doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu
Robert C. Eklund, College of Education; (850) 645-2909 or erobert@fsu.edu
Libby Fairhurst, News and Public Affairs, (850) 644-4030 or efairhurst@fsu.edu
 
TALLAHASSEE ORTHOPEDIC CLINIC (TOC) CONTACTS:
Dr. Tom Haney, M.D.; (850) 893-2429 or thaneyhsd@earthlink.net
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. —  Florida State University (FSU) experts in medicine, exercise science, nutrition, sports psychology and athletic training have partnered with one of the nation’s premier sports medicine and orthopedic treatment centers to establish the Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine (ISSM), a public-private collaboration that spells good news for millions of athletes of all ages.
 
Based at Florida State, the institute will lead interdisciplinary research and educational outreach programs focused on the development of elite-level athletic and human performance –– including an emphasis on long-term health and the prevention and treatment of athletic injuries such as concussions.
 
A formidable team, the ISSM links a top-tier research university and sports powerhouse with distinguished sports medicine physicians at Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic (TOC), which has provided comprehensive orthopedic health care for more than 35 years.
 
“Our institute’s focus is the end-users –– athletes of all ages –– and all its activities will be designed to directly benefit them by promoting peak performance and optimal health,” said ISSM Director Mark J. Kasper, a faculty member in FSU’s Department of Nutrition, Food and Exercise Sciences. “Our research and outreach efforts will target the general public as well as the medical and scientific communities.”
 
Under construction is a state-of-the-art Human Performance Laboratory that will house the ISSM research and programs. Located near the Florida State University track-and-field complex, the laboratory is slated for completion by fall. Then, research will become a key part of the game plan.
 
Among the forthcoming projects:
 
• Physicians from TOC will lead a study of “autologous conditioned plasma” –– also known as platelet-rich plasma –– which may help to speed the healing of persistent tendon injuries. To obtain the plasma, a patient’s blood is drawn and spun to separate the platelet-rich portion from the red blood cells. The platelet-rich plasma is then injected back into the patient at the injury site. While some U.S. sports-medicine doctors are already performing the procedure, it is still considered experimental.
• Kasper will develop a database for athletes –– especially those at the high school level –– to track the incidence and prevalence of injuries and other chronic conditions over time as athletes age.

• For medical students interested in sports sciences and medicine, Dr. Daniel Van Durme, chairman of the FSU College of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine and Rural Health, is developing ISSM mentoring opportunities that will include summer research fellowships and research electives during the fall and spring semesters.
“The rural, minority, elderly and other underserved populations with which College of Medicine students work may particularly benefit from the institute’s efforts to better understand and improve exercise behaviors,” Van Durme said.
 
When it comes to the practical application of cutting-edge sports medicine research, FSU Intercollegiate Athletics Director Randy Spetman predicts an international role for the institute and an invaluable one closer to home.
 
“We are very pleased that our outstanding student-athletes will have the opportunity to work within this innovative program and benefit from an association with world-class experts in the sports-medicine field,” said Spetman, a key member of the ISSM team along with Athletics’ award-winning strength-and-conditioning coach, Jon Jost.
 
Institute partner Dr. Tom C. Haney of TOC has a long association with Florida State University –– as a former student (B.S., biological science, 1964), a courtesy professor in the College of Human Sciences, and in his work as FSU team physician from 1975-2009.
 
“All of our TOC physicians have published research articles in the past, but the demands of our orthopedic practices make it very difficult to pursue our research ideas,” Haney said. “Now, the Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine gives us a rare, wonderful opportunity to work with FSU professors and students on beneficial research in areas of mutual interest.”
 
In addition to Kasper, institute leaders at Florida State include associate directors Angela Sehgal and Michele Garber, athletic trainers in the College of Human Sciences. Joining institute partner Spetman and advisors Jost (Athletics) and Van Durme (College of Medicine) is College of Education Professor Robert C. Eklund, an internationally recognized expert in sports psychology. From Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic, CEO Martin Shipman joins Drs. Haney and Steve E. Jordan as institute partners.
 
For an online version of this story, associated images, and a video featuring Kasper, Shipman and Jost, visit the Florida State University news site at http://fsu.edu/news/2011/05/11/sports.sciences/.
 
For additional information about Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic, go to www.tlhoc.com.
 

CONTACT: John Fraser, FSU Office of Intellectual Property
Development and Commercialization
(850) 644-8637; jfraser@techtransfer.fsu.edu
 
By Elizabeth Bettendorf
June 2011
TO MOVE CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH FROM LAB TO MARKETPLACE
Researchers at Florida State University seeking to shepherd their research out of the laboratory and into the crowded commercial marketplace have a friend in the FSU Research Foundation. Since 2005, the foundation has funded a highly energetic — and competitive — grant program that supports those researchers and their extraordinary efforts.
 
The Grant Assistance Program, or GAP, awards those who can most clearly identify the commercial feasibility of a process, product, license or start-up company that they believe will grow from their endeavors with a commercial partner.
 
The GAP awards are given out twice yearly. The four projects that earned GAP funding during the most recent awards cycle (Spring 2011) are:
 
• Nanobelt Biosensors: A $50,000 award goes to P. Bryant Chase, professor and chairman of the FSU Department of Biological Science, and Professor Peng Xiong of the Department of Physics, for the development and testing of a device that can be used to sense the presence of hepatitis C viral proteins. If the researchers are successful, their technology potentially has many other commercial applications.
• Light-Activated Agents for Anticancer Drugs: A $25,000 award goes to Professor Igor Alabugin of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry to further develop a novel cancer-fighting approach that uses exposure to light to activate a powerful class of anticancer molecules. When exposed to light, these molecules can target and destroy cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed. If successful, Alabugin will be much closer to developing a therapy regime that will be of great commercial interest to the cancer research industry.
• A Novel Approach to Treating Stroke Victims: A $25,000 award goes to Ewa Bienkiewicz, an assistant scholar/scientist in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, for development of a therapeutic agent that can go into the body and naturalize the effect of toxic hemin release following a stroke. Hemin is a byproduct of the breakdown of hemoglobin, which occurs after a stroke.  Currently there is only one approved option for stroke patients, a “clot-buster” class of drugs that must be given within three hours of a stroke. This new therapy could begin up to 24 hours following a stroke’s onset. The GAP funding will help Bienkiewicz take her current work much closer to a point where it will have commercial opportunity. High Performance Flexible Batteries: A $12,000 award goes to Professor Richard Liang of FSU’s High Performance Materials Institute, and Jesse Smithyman, a doctoral student working under Liang, for a technology that uses carbon nanotubes as the basis for smaller, more flexible batteries that will be part of the devices they power. Liang and his fellow researchers will take the flexible battery technology through more rigid testing and evaluation and bring it closer to where it can be built into “real” products.

All GAP award recipients will be assigned a team of mentors composed of local business leaders. The groups will meet four times a year to provide expertise and assistance with product development.
 
“One of the most important contributions that large research universities can make is to nurture the scientific and technological expertise that our society depends on to generate commercially viable breakthroughs in medicine, computer technology, energy generation and so many other areas,” said Kirby Kemper, Florida State’s vice president for Research. “With this new round of GAP awards, we are able to support researchers who may be on the brink of bringing research break-throughs to market. “
 
For more information about the GAP Program at Florida State University, visit http://www.techtransfer.fsu.edu.
 
To read this article online and view associated images and a video clip featuring the award winners, visit http://www.fsu.com/Featured-Stories/Four-FSU-projects-win-GAP-awards-to-move-cutting-edge-research-from-lab-to-marketplace.
 

On Monday, the Florida State University College of Medicine and Lee Memorial Health System will unveil plans for a doctor training program intended to create more primary care physicians for Southwest Florida.

At present, Florida ranks 43rd nationally in number of the number of medical residents. The fourth most populous state in the nation, Florida faces a severe physician shortage particularly in primary care specialties, in rural areas and in the number of doctors to care for the state’s rapidly expanding population of older patients.

On average, 60 percent of graduating medical students in Florida leave the state for residency training. A physician is far more likely to set up practice in the community where he or she completes graduate medical education (residency or fellowship) than near where he or she graduated from medical school. Presently, there are no allopathic residency programs south of Tampa along Florida’s west coast.

Participating in the announcement will be Florida State University College of Medicine Dean John P. Fogarty and Richard Akin, chairman of the board at Lee Memorial Health System and president and CEO of Collier Health Services, Inc.

MONDAY, AUGUST 8

NOON

LEE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL AUDITORIUM
2776 CLEVELAND AVE.
FORT MYERS
(near the entrance to the emergency room)