CONTACT: Kara Irby, University Communications
(850) 644-0277; kirby@fsu.edu

April 2018

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State University has seen a significant increase in the number of applications for graduate school for the upcoming summer term.

The number of applications for admission to the FSU Graduate School has more than doubled since last summer.

There are currently 7,863 graduate students enrolled in FSU advanced degree programs, including the College of Medicine and the College of Law. Since the fall 2017 application cycle, FSU has received more than 10,000 applications for admission to its graduate programs.

“I believe there’s excitement surrounding FSU,” said Mark Riley, dean of the Graduate School. “People are hearing about it, and it is certainly a university on the move. They are hearing loud and clear how spectacular the education opportunities are at this university.”

Riley also credits the use of a new application management and communication system for the increased interest in graduate studies at FSU. In August, the Graduate School, in conjunction with the Office of Admissions, designed, built and deployed a new web inquiry tool for prospective students.

Since its launch, 41 percent of prospective students who completed an initial web inquiry form started a formal application. Of those students who started formal applications, 61 percent actually completed a graduate application.

“This was a game-changer because of our ability to now strategically market to prospective applicants,” said Brian Barton, associate dean for Business Operations at the Graduate School. “Now we are able to not only send marketing messages, but we can personalize those messages. It’s all about creating the connection, so they can visualize seeing themselves here at FSU.”

A new graduate enrollment team also is working behind the scenes to reach prospective graduate students. The positions were created by the Office of the Provost in alignment with the university’s most recent strategic plan and at the direction of the Subcommittee on Graduate Recruitment.

“This is a group of superstars,” Riley said. “A team of four has just come aboard this year, and they are doing incredible things. They are going out to see how we can improve the departments and colleges and work together to further enhance graduate education at FSU.”

Graduate applications for the fall are also trending upward compared to previous years. The university deadline for graduate school admission for the fall semester is July 1.

Increased applications are not the only signs of progress within graduate education at FSU. The reputation of the university’s graduate programs also is improving. Graduate programs in criminology, business, law, education, nursing and engineering all made significant jumps in the U.S. News and World Report 2019 edition of “Best Graduate Schools.”

“Florida State University has a growing reputation for excellence in student success,” said Sally McRorie, provost and executive vice president of Academic Affairs. “The expanding application numbers for our graduate programs indicate their rigor and quality, as well as our strong record of graduate alumni placement in advanced roles in a broad range of careers and professions.”

This year, FSU also received a record number of undergraduate applications. More than 51,000 prospective first-year students applied for admission to the 2018 summer and fall semesters. FSU expects to enroll about 6,200 freshmen in the Class of 2022.

For more information on the Graduate School, visit http://gradschool.fsu.edu.

MEDIA ADVISORY

CONTACT: Melissa Powell, College of Medicine
(850) 645-9699; Melissa.powell@med.fsu.edu

May 15, 2018

The Florida State University College of Medicine will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday for its planned new primary-care health center — FSU PrimaryHealth, which is expected to open for patients in early 2019.

Among those participating in the groundbreaking will be FSU President John Thrasher, FSU College of Medicine Dean John P. Fogarty and Leon County Commissioner Jimbo Jackson.

When it opens, FSU PrimaryHealth will be the first full-service, primary-care health center in southwest Tallahassee, covering a range of primary- and behavioral-health needs. Patient care will be provided by FSU College of Medicine faculty physicians in family medicine and pediatrics.

The groundbreaking ceremony will take place:

Directions: From West Pensacola Street, travel south on Mabry Street to Roberts Avenue. Turn right and continue to the intersection of Roberts Avenue and Eisenhower Street. Parking is available at the site (enter off Eisenhower).

CONTACT: Zachary Boehm, University Communications
(850) 645-1504; zboehm@fsu.edu

@FSUResearch

May 2018

 TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — For clinicians providing comprehensive care to patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), proactive depression screening may not always rank high on the list of first-priority concerns.

However, Florida State University researchers who surveyed years of data on epidemiological and clinical factors suggest that depression screening should be at the forefront of any CAD treatment program.

In fact, in patients with CAD, an early depression diagnosis could be a matter of life and death.

Individuals with both CAD and depression have significantly poorer health outcomes, with one recent study suggesting that a dual diagnosis was associated with a two-fold higher risk of mortality.

“Despite this evidence, there continues to be challenges in addressing the issue,” said Aimee Pragle, assistant professor in the School of Physician Assistant Practice and co-author of an article published this month in the Journal of the American Academy of Physicians Assistants.

“Studies show that only 30 percent of CAD patients who meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression are actually diagnosed. This demonstrates the need for continued education of clinicians in understanding how to identify and manage depression in patients with CAD.”

Pragle’s article defines the criteria for major depression diagnosis, outlines an array of screening tools and offers a battery of recommended treatment options for at-risk CAD patients. She said she hopes her work can serve as a resource for clinicians as they learn to administer more effective care to patients with depression and CAD.

“One of the first steps for effectively communicating with patients about depression and CAD is for members of the health care team to have an understanding of depression screening tools,” Pragle said. “These tools should be a routine part of clinical and hospital practice.”

While research has demonstrated a link between depression, CAD and increased risk of premature death, little is known about depression’s causal relationship to adverse cardiac outcomes.

Depressive CAD patients, said Pragle, may find it more difficult to comply with rigorous drug regimens or maintain preventive care initiatives to improve cholesterol, blood pressure and diet.

“Patients’ reduced ability to implement these needed health interventions can over time make them more vulnerable to worse CAD outcomes,” she said.

Pragle’s academic investigation of depression and CAD is informed by years of personal experience caring for patients as a clinician.

In her time as a cardiology physician assistant, Pragle came to recognize the importance of providing thoughtful and dynamic aid to patients with CAD and depression at every stage of the health care process — from acute medical events to cardiology care to comprehensive primary care follow-ups.

Just as blood pressure readings, cholesterol measurements and glucose level monitoring have become standard care, Pragle said, depression screenings should be included as a regular step in the treatment of patients with CAD.

“When clinicians work together as a team to implement screenings, it can improve the diagnosis and treatment of depression,” she said. “Our article highlights why it is important that each provider on the health care team have an understanding of diagnosis of depression.”

Susan Salahshor, FSU professor of physician assistant practice and president of the Florida Academy of Physician Assistants, co-authored the article.

MEDIA ADVISORY

CONTACT: Doug Carlson, FSU College of Medicine
(850) 645-1255; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

May 17, 2018

The Florida State University College of Medicine will graduate its 14th class of medical students at a commencement ceremony Saturday. Michael Sweeney, associate professor of clinical sciences and the medical school’s education director for surgery, will deliver the commencement address.

During the ceremony, the college will graduate 108 new physicians. In addition, it will graduate its ninth class of students with the Master of Science degree in Biomedical Sciences–Bridge to Clinical Medicine. By completing the program, the 10 Bridge students have qualified to begin medical school at Florida State on May 29 as members of the incoming Class of 2022.

The Bridge program has been credited with increasing the number of qualified candidates for medical school from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine, including minority students and students from rural communities. Bridge and other outreach programs have helped the College of Medicine become the only U.S. medical school to rank among the Top 10 for its percentage of both black and Hispanic students.

Thanks in part to Bridge, FSU medical alumni are practicing in rural communities at rates significantly above the national average. Eighty-four FSU alumni are caring for patients in the Florida Panhandle and rural border counties.

The commencement ceremony will take place:

MEDIA ADVISORY

CONTACT: Melissa Powell, College of Medicine
850-645-9699; melissa.powell@med.fsu.edu

May 31, 2018

 First-year College of Medicine students will board buses on Friday and fan out across North Florida to explore rural health care as part of the Florida State University College of Medicine Rural Learning Experience (RuLE), sponsored by the Florida Blue Foundation. The project aims to increase students’ familiarity with rural health — and the possibility that they’ll practice rural medicine — by exposing them early to rural communities and health providers.

This year, four buses will depart, each with 30 first-year medical students, first-year physician assistant students, several graduate students, plus faculty and staff from the College of Medicine. The destinations are Cairo, Georgia; Crawfordville, Medart and Panacea in Wakulla County, Florida; Marianna, Florida; and Quincy, Florida.

In addition to visiting rural hospitals, health departments and medical practices, students will meet and hear from primary-care physicians (including College of Medicine alumni), nurse practitioners, administrators, community members and leaders, and second-year medical students who participated in the 2017 RuLE. Bus trips will take place:

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

June 2018

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The journey to becoming a physician began earlier this month for 120 students who make up the 18th class admitted to the Florida State University College of Medicine.

Getting this far was no small feat. They were among nearly 7,200 applicants.

FSU boasts one of the most selective medical schools in the nation. In each of the past three years, the College of Medicine has appeared on the U.S. News & World Report list of “10 Medical Schools with the Lowest Acceptance Rates,” placing second for the class entering in 2015, fourth in 2016 and third in 2017.

Acceptance rates have held steady for the last four years — 2.4 percent in 2015 and 2018; and 2.6 percent in 2016 and 2017.

“Our reputation for providing an excellent medical education is making us a school of choice for candidates,” said College of Medicine Dean John P. Fogarty. “If we make an offer, they readily accept.”

Acceptance rates are calculated based on the number of applicants and the number of offers extended. In 2017, the average acceptance rate for U.S. medical schools overall was 7 percent, according to data from 120 medical schools ranked by U.S. News.

“We’re obviously pleased to see so much interest in this medical school and our unique, community-based and patient-centered approach, but we are even more excited about what a quality pool of applicants means in terms of helping us achieve our mission,” Fogarty said. “To accomplish what the Florida Legislature asked us to do when creating this school nearly 20 years ago, we need students who not only are smart but believe in the service calling of medicine.”

FSU’s mission includes preparing physicians who will be responsive to community needs, especially through service to elder, rural, minority and underserved populations. Research shows that students who come from medically underserved communities are more likely to choose to practice in such communities.

College of Medicine pipeline programs seek to develop more quality applicants to medical school from rural and other underserved communities. Today, about one-quarter of each incoming class is made up of students who have come through the college’s outreach pipeline programs.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, FSU is the only one of more than 140 member medical schools among the Top 10 for enrollment of both black and Hispanic students. The College of Medicine was recognized with the 2017 Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award.

The Class of 2022 includes 69 women and 51 men. There are 15 black students and 15 Spanish, Hispanic or Latino students. Five are from a rural county in Florida and 30 are from the Panhandle.

10 Medical Schools with the Lowest Acceptance Rates (2017-18)
Source: U.S. News 

CONTACT: Veronica Jones, FSU Autism Institute
(850) 488-4072; veronica.jones@med.fsu.edu

June 2018

By Ron Hartung

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Special training for teachers may mean big results for students with autism spectrum disorder, according to Florida State University and Emory University researchers.

In a new study, children whose teachers received specialized training “were initiating more, participating more, having back-and-forth conversations more, and responding to their teachers and peers more frequently,” said researcher Lindee Morgan.

Morgan and FSU Autism Institute Director Amy Wetherby were co-principal investigators of a three-year, 60-school study that measured the effectiveness of a curriculum, called SCERTS, designed specifically for teachers of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

SCERTS (pronounced “serts”) was developed in 2006. It targets the most significant challenges presented by ASD, spelled out in its acronym: “SC” for social communication, “ER” for emotional regulation, and “TS” for transactional support (developing a partnership of people at school and at home who can respond to the ASD child’s needs and interests and enhance learning).

The team reported its results this month in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Morgan, the lead author, worked at the Autism Institute when the study was conducted and now is at Emory’s School of Medicine. Co-author Wetherby was one of the developers of the SCERTS curriculum.

“There is now a solid body of research on treatments for preschool children with ASD,” Wetherby said. “However, this study is one of only a few demonstrating the efficacy of a treatment for school-age children. And the most impressive part is it was conducted in public school classrooms with a good mix of general and special education teachers.”

ASD refers to a group of complex neurodevelopment disorders characterized by restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and difficulties with social communication and interaction.

The research team enlisted the participation of 60 schools in 10 districts: one in California, two in Georgia and seven in Florida (Gadsden, Jackson, Leon, Okaloosa, Taylor, Volusia and Wakulla counties). They randomly matched pairs of schools for the study.

In each pair, one school was designated ATM, for “autism training modules.” Its students got regular classroom teaching supplemented only by a website where modules related to autism were available to teachers. The other school was designated CSI, for “classroom SCERTS intervention.” Its participating teachers received three days of SCERTS training — plus regular coaching, access to extra reference materials and videos of themselves in the classroom.

Morgan said the team was delighted with the results showing how CSI schools outperformed ATMs. One of the study’s strongest features, she said, was that teachers could watch the videos and see for themselves how the classroom had changed.

“Our primary outcome measure was a direct observation tool, which is basically unheard of in educational intervention research,” she said. “Video was a very tedious process. However, it’s such a great measure to see what both teachers and students are using in the classroom.”

In addition, she said, a parent report and several teacher measures also showed that the students in the CSI group outperformed the ATM group.

“There is a pressing need to change the landscape of education for school-age students with ASD,” the paper concluded. “This work has the potential to contribute to this change by providing a feasible, comprehensive model of intervention that can be implemented in a variety of educational placements and settings.”

Morgan said CSI could benefit teachers and all students, not just those on the autism spectrum.

“General education teachers in most states aren’t required to have autism training,” she said. “And yet they find themselves with kids with autism because that’s the law. These days, more than 70 percent of kids on the spectrum have no intellectual disabilities. Therefore, schools are moving more toward modifying and adapting the mainstream classroom in ways that are not only helpful for kids with autism but also good for all the students. I remember some of our kindergarten teachers saying afterward: ‘Putting this in place helped my whole class.’”

The other co-authors of the paper were FSU Professor of Psychology Chris Schatschneider, Jessica L. Hooker from the FSU Autism Institute, and University of California, Davis researchers Nicole Sparapani and Vanessa P. Reinhardt.

The study was funded by a $3 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education.

Alfred Gitu, M.D., has been named the next program director of the Florida State University College of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program at Lee Health. Dr. Gitu has been a faculty member since the program launched in 2012 and has served as associate program director for the past year.

Read the full press release from Lee Health.

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

Nadia Mehriary, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare
(850) 431-5450; Nadia.Mehriary@TMH.ORG

July 2018

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Claudia Kroker-Bode, M.D., Ph.D., has been named program director for the Florida State University College of Medicine Internal Medicine Residency Program at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.

Kroker-Bode succeeds founding program director Gregory Todd, M.D., J.D., who now serves as the College of Medicine’s clerkship director for advanced internal medicine and director of the FSU Center for Innovative Collaboration in Medicine and Law.

“We are extremely excited to have Dr. Kroker-Bode join us to begin building on the solid foundation created by Dr. Todd and his faculty and staff,” said Dean Watson, M.D., chief health information officer at TMH. “We are thankful for where the program is today and look forward to great things in the future under Dr. Kroker-Bode’s leadership.”

Kroker-Bode previously served as program director for the internal medicine residency at Carilion Clinic-Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.

“I see this as a wonderful opportunity to lead a residency program that’s already established but is ready to move to the next stage of its development,” she said. “There are opportunities here to develop this program in many ways, and I see myself being able to do that. That was one of the many things that attracted me.”

Kroker-Bode, an award-winning medical educator, was most recently honored with the Carilion School of Medicine 2017 innovative teaching award. She earned her medical degree in Muenster, Germany, and later became chief resident of internal medicine at MedStar Health in Baltimore.

The internal medicine residency program, established at TMH in 2010, received initial accreditation and welcomed its first residents in 2012. The program is accredited for up to 36 residents.

“Dr. Kroker-Bode brings a wealth of experience to the position, and we are confident that she will take the program to the next level,” said Joan Meek, M.D., associate dean for graduate medical education at the College of Medicine.

CONTACT: Zachary Boehm, University Communications
(850) 645-1504; zboehm@fsu.edu
@FSUResearch

July 2018

FSU FACULTY AWARDED $226M IN RESEARCH DOLLARS

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State University researchers brought in more than $226 million in the 2018 fiscal year from federal, state and private sources to support investigations into areas such as nuclear science, climate change, the effect of deep space travel on human health and much more.

This is a $16 million increase over the prior fiscal year and the second highest amount FSU researchers have ever received in a single year. The university has received more than $1 billion over five years.

“This news is evidence of the growth of Florida State University and the exceptional work by the faculty here,” Vice President for Research Gary K. Ostrander said. “We have made critical investments to support our researchers as they apply for these competitive grants and are seeing a great return on that.”

The yearly total received a boost from university researchers’ increased focus on pursuing funding from the National Institutes of Health. Over the past year, FSU researchers have received a 73 percent increase in NIH funding.

Florida State is one of the leaders in the state for NIH funding. FSU ranks fifth in the state for NIH dollars, ahead of research heavyweights such as the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa.

The university also received a record number of awards from the National Science Foundation, with 201 awards this past fiscal year.

“What these dollars represent is the dedication by researchers to do work that improves the human condition,” Ostrander said. “Researchers are working on treatments for Zika, Alzheimer’s and cancer. They’re developing new technologies that can improve our daily lives. These decisions by federal officials and other organizations to award FSU this type of money shows their faith in our faculty members to make the big scientific breakthroughs that can change our world.”

This is the second highest amount that FSU researchers have received in a single fiscal year from federal, state and private sources. The record year was 2014 when researchers brought in $230.1 million. However, that total was boosted by federal stimulus dollars that had to be used in a finite period.

This swell of research activity coincides with a dramatic jump in national rankings by FSU. In two years, the university surged ahead 10 spots in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. FSU is now ranked No. 33 in the nation among public universities.

The Florida Legislature’s designation of FSU as a preeminent university in the state has provided FSU with additional funding that has allowed the university to hire more faculty in the health sciences and other areas.

###