Grinning with anticipation, 8-year-old Ty’rique Brock waited patiently to hear if he was one of the lucky few to win a prize at the grand finale celebration of the Scorecard program, held Nov. 7 at Jackson Heights Recreation Center in East Tampa.

Ty’rique has spent the past couple of months filling up his own scorecard with stamps and signatures that verified his participation in physical activity. Football, kickball, relay races, playing in the park; these were some of his choice activities. At the finale, he was among the three dozen young students from two area elementary schools who had filled the 24 spots on at least one scorecard and could now be in the running for one of the grand prizes: two bicycles, a Wii console and games, scooters, tickets to USF basketball and football games and to the Florida Aquarium.

Scorecard Community Coordinator Bonnie Salazar with Ty'rique Brock, his mother Andrenna Brock, and a full scorecard.

The Florida Prevention Research Center (FPRC) at the USF College of Public Health helped Robles and Sulphur Springs Elementary Schools implement the Scorecard program, which offers elementary aged students action outlets for physical activity in their community. The program encourages youth to try new activities with an emphasis on fun rather than health or skill.

“It’s all about providing an opportunity for them to try new things, to spend time with friends and family, to find something they like to do, and to have fun,” said Robert J. McDermott, PhD, professor of public health and co-director of the FPRC with Carol Bryant, PhD.

Students use the card to track their physical activity. When they have been active for a designated period of time (typically one hour) at a Scorecard site or at home, an adult stamps or signs one of the 24 squares on the card. Once all of the squares are filled, the card is redeemed for physical activity related prizes (such as Frisbees, beach towels, water bottles, backpacks), and makes them eligible for grand prizes.

The Scorecard program began in 2004 in Lexington, KY, and USF’s FPRC earned a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2006 to fund Scorecard locally.

The FPRC ran a pilot Scorecard program for middle school students in Sarasota County in 2006, then the full program for elementary school students in Hillsborough County last spring.

“One key point we learned from the Sarasota program was that it is better to target younger kids because as the kids start to enter their teens, they start to favor sedentary activities, like video games and television,” Dr. McDermott said.

“So the point is to interest them in activities earlier because by the time students are teenagers, it might be too late.”

During the past year, the FPRC worked with Robles and Sulphur Springs Elementary Schools, as well as other community partners in the Sulphur Springs and Robles areas, to build a comprehensive plan for tailoring the Scorecard program to fit local needs, with the goal of helping Tampa’s youth become more physically active throughout the year.

Prior to choosing the schools that would participate, Dr. McDermott’s team assessed the environment surrounding the schools, looking for those that were more kid friendly, with parks that had amenities like bathrooms and benches, and with ample venues for planned activities, such as bowling alleys, skating rinks, etc.

“We want the kids to feel safe, so if the nearby park is littered with broken bottles or drug paraphernalia, we weren’t likely to include that school,” he said.

Local venues participated by hosting regularly scheduled events for the students. Terrace Sports, for example, hosted weekly timeslots when students could bowl for $1 per game with a $1 shoe rental. Weekends were filled with events, such as track meets or baseball clinics at local parks, or activities like the Too Good For Drugs Walk and KidFest at MOSI.

Much of the support provided by FPRC came from public health graduate students John Trainor, Emily Koby, and Alyssa Mayer, Dr. McDermott said. They staffed many of the events and evaluated the programs to provide feedback to the school. In addition, the graduate students collected data from last spring’s program and presented it this month at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association. Students will also be involved in the data analysis from the fall program, and will probably present or publish those results, as well as share the results with the schools as feedback.

“They learn something new from participants’ feedback and refine the program each time,” Dr. McDermott said.

From left: Alyssa Mayer (MPH student COPH), John Trainor (PhD candidate Applied Anthropology), Andrenna Brock-Cadet (mother of Scorecard student), Emily Koby (master's student Applied Anthropology), Bonnie Salazar (Scorecard Community Coordinator), and Susan Carrigan (USF Social Marketing Ctr.).

In addition to the graduate students, the program received much support from Tonya Thomas as the neighborhood Scorecard coordinator and Sulphur Springs resident.

Next spring, however, the goal is for the schools to take the program and run with it, Dr. McDermott said.

“We have built an infrastructure with the schools and community organizers so that they could run the program on their own.”

Beyond that, the next task is to apply basic marketing principles and develop a tool kit that can be used in schools around the country, he said.

As for Ty’rique and the grand finale celebration, he didn’t win one of the grand prizes but still came away feeling like a winner. His mother Andrenna Brock-Cadet said that the Scorecard program was great for Ty’rique.

“Sometimes we’re surrounded by a lot of negative and this program was a positive thing for my son,” she said.

“As a parent, I enjoyed seeing him participate. And it helped me get out and move, too. Sometimes I would get in there and run around and play. They definitely need to keep this program going.”

Playing up the grand prizes at the Scorecard Finale Celebration are DJ Ekin (left), radio host for WBTP 95.7 the BEAT, and Acafool, a local hiphop artist.

Students get in the mix at the Scorecard Finale Celebration.

Story by Sarah A. Worth, USF Health Communications
Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications

Newschannel 8 anchor Gayle Sierens interviews Dr. Stephen Klasko, USF medical dean.

The USF College of Medicine was featured on last night’s (Nov. 3rd) newscast of WFLA Newschannel 8 in a story titled “A New DNA for Doctors.”

COM Dean Stephen Klasko, MD, MBA, was interviewed by veteran news anchor Gayle Sierens for a segment on the college’s innovative approaches to teaching the next generation of doctors.

In introducing the interview with Dr. Klasko, Sierens said: “He’s old enough to remember Marcus Welby, MD, experienced enough as a doctor to know communication is the key to really helping patients, smart enough to have an MBA from Wharton, and wily enough to speak out and say the old way of getting kids into medical school needs a little tweaking…”

USF 2nd year medical student Elisa (Margret) McQueen and 3rd year student Courtney Bovee – both enrolled in the Business and Entrepreneurship scholarly concentration – were also interviewed.

Click here for video of the newscast "A New DNA for Doctors.".

Sierens continued the conversation with Dr. Klasko, discussing healthcare reform’s impact on medical education, on the 11 a.m. newscast scheduled to air Friday, Nov. 13. Dr. Klasko commented on the shortage of primary care physicians who will be needed to anchor a health system insuring more people.

Click here for video of newscast "Where Will The Doctors Come From?"

Hillsborough Circuit Judge Gregory Holder, left, and Chief Circuit Judge Manuel Menendez, right, donned white coats to help Dr. Steve Klasko, CEO of USF Health and dean of the USF College of Medicine, into a black judicial robe.

     Lawyers and doctors came together in Tampa Oct. 6 for USF’s Black Robe Program, an event intended to bridge gaps between medicine and the law. The program allowed our USF Health faculty members to learn more about the legal system from those who know it best – Hillsborough County judges and lawyers.

Rhea Law, chair of the USF Board of Trustees, participated in the Black Robe program.

      The program was designed by Rhea Law, chair of the USF Board of Trustees; Hillsborough Circuit Judge Gregory Holder; and Dr. Steve Klasko, CEO of USF Health and dean of the USF College of Medicine, to emulate the concept of the White Coat program at Tampa General Hospital.

Dr. H. James Brownlee, Jr., chair of family medicine at USF, makes a point during the Black Robe Program.

     Faculty physicians, along with a few medical students, met with judges Wednesday and then spent the day shadowing a judge, learning up close how the legal system works. The day also featured a discussion of health issues in the judicial and legal process.

Black Robe Program participants inluded, L to R: Judge Menendez; medical student Anna Wouters; medical student David Sindler; Dr. Klasko; medical student Lisa Daniels; Rhea Law; Dr. Alicia Monroe, vice dean for educational affairs; Judge Holder; and Jay Wolfson, associate vice president for health law, policy and safety.

     -- Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications

A team of USF residents recently won a state “medical jeopardy” competition sponsored by the Florida chapter of the American College of Physicians (ACP) and set an all-time points record for the 25-year-old ACP competition. This is the third year in a row USF internal medicine residents have won the annual competition.

Stuart Himmelstein, MD, Florida ACP Governor; Robert Ledford, MD; Kellee Oller, MD; Francisco Torano, MD; Joe Lezama, MD. The ACP State Championship trophy is featured above Dr. Oller.

The USF team includes Robert Ledford, MD, Kellee Oller, MD, and Francisco Torano, MD – all residents in the USF Department of Internal Medicine and, coincidentally, all graduates from the USF College of Medicine.

The “coach” for the winning team is Joe Lezama, MD, associate professor in the USF Department of Internal Medicine and chief of medicine at the James A. Haley VA Hospital. Dr. Lezama, who has coached USF teams for 10 years (with five state titles now under his belt), also coached a team of fourth year medical students who won a national “medical jeopardy” competition at the ACP annual meeting in April. That team also included Dr.Oller and Dr. Torano, who have since graduated and moved up to the internal medicine resident team.

“It was a blowout,” Dr. Lezama said. “USF earned a record 1,000 points in this competition, handily beating out the University of Florida, which scored a negative 150 points. That’s a 1,200-point victory!”

Next on their list is pursuing the national / international title in April 2010, when they will travel to Toronto to compete against other U.S. teams, as well as those from Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Central and South America, in the 2010 ACP annual meeting.

Contestants had to recognize radiographic findings of Paget's disease, skin findings of neurofibromas, and EKG findings of left bundle branch block. They also had to answer a broad range of questions on internal medicine topics. Here’s a sample:

1. What is the number needed to treat if the absolute risk reduction is 0.1?
2. What is the infection one is most concerned with in patients infected with Taenia solium?
3. What is the first test to get for a pregnant woman with abnormal uterine bleeding?
4. What is the skin lesion associated with Darier's sign?

Did you do as well as our residents? (See answers below)

Story by Sarah A. Worth, USF Health Communications

Answers:

1. Ten; 2. Neurocysticercosis; 3. Pregnancy test; 4. Urticaria pigmentosa

TAMPA, Fla. (September 4, 2009) -- Researchers from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the College of Public Health were recently awarded a three-year, $800,000 grant from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to establish a Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics at USF.

Led by Yiliang Zhu, PhD, professor in the College of Public Health, the USF team draws upon a wide array of expertise from researchers at Colleges of Public Health, Medicine, Nursing, Moffitt Cancer Center, Jaeb Center for Health Research, and Tampa VA hospital.

The summer institute, which will open in the summer of 2010, is a part of a national effort to train the next generation of biostatistical scientists. Its aim is to address a persistent shortage in biostatistics training and to support medical and health research.

Undergraduate and graduate students interested in pursuing an academic program or a professional career in biostatistics should consider applying to participate in the six-week summer institute. For more information, email Yiliang Zhu at yzhu@health.usf.edu.

USF athletic training student Tristen Webb measures the range of motion of fellow student T.J. Gilbert as Dr. Gianluca Del Rossi looks on.

The USF Athletic Training program has been granted reaccreditation for 10 years – the maximum period allowed by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE).

USF’s ATEP is one of only two (out of more than 350 programs nationwide) located within a medical school and the only one housed in an orthopedic department, said Micki Cuppett, EdD, ATC, director of Athletic Training Education at USF Health.

“USF serves as a model of excellence for other athletic training programs across the country,” Dr. Cuppett said. “We routinely receive inquiries from other ATEPs who look to us to learn how we positioned the program in the College of Medicine.”

The two-year undergraduate program recently moved into 6,200 square feet of space on the third floor of the University Professional Center, 3500 E. Fletcher Ave. That was just in time to accommodate the program’s newest group of 31 incoming students -- its largest class ever. The new space includes two classrooms and a state-of-the-art Athletic Training Lab complete with rehabilitation and emergency equipment, 17 examination tables and a research laboratory.

Approximately 250 pre-athletic training majors compete yearly for 30 admission slots in the USF ATEP; the program’s total student enrollment (juniors and seniors) is currently 59. Students gain 250 hours of clinical experience each semester and collaborate with athletic trainers, orthopedic surgeons and residents, primary care and musculoskeletal medicine physicians— professionals they will work with throughout their careers. The students rotate through area high schools, community rehabilitation/physical therapy clinics, USF Athletics and several professional sports organizations, including the Philadelphia Phillies and Toronto Blue Jays. Graduates receive a B.S. degree in Athletic Training and are eligible to sit for the national licensing exam.

Dr. Jeff Konin lectures to first-year athletic training students in their new classroom.

The USF ATEP was initially accredited in 2003, when the major was housed in the College of Education. The program transferred to the new Department of Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine in 2007.

Positioning the ATEP program in Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine allows athletic training students to take advantage of College of Medicine resources, including the gross anatomy laboratory and patient simulators in the Center for Advanced Clinical Learning. It also facilitates cross-disciplinary education. For example, athletic training faculty and student help teach medical students musculoskeletal content and skills in the Physical Diagnosis courses and in the fourth-year Skin and Bones Clerkship.

The ATEP program also strengthens USF’s Sports Medicine and Athletic Related Trauma Institute, a state-sponsored sports safety outreach program providing certified athletic trainers to high schools across the Tampa Bay region. Several of USF’s ATEP graduates now work for SMART at local high schools.

“Our graduates have established successful careers as athletic trainers in high schools, colleges and universities, professional sports programs, sports medicine clinics and other athletic health care settings,” Dr. Cuppett said.

About 70 percent of USF’s athletic training graduates continue on to earn another professional degree, including the MD degree or an advanced degree in physical therapy, she added.

The Athletic Training laboratory and classrooms occupy 6,200 square feet in the University Professional Center. The new space accommodates numerous exam and treatment tables.

Faculty and staff involved in the year-long self study and preparation for the reaccreditation site visit this spring were: David Leffers, MD, Chair, Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine; Jeff Konin, PhD, ATC, PT, Vice Chair, Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine, and Director, SMART; Micki Cuppett, EdD, ATC, Director, Athletic Training Education; Gianluca DelRossi, PhD, ATC; Barbara Morris, MS, ATC, CSCS, ROT; and Larry Collins, PA-C

For more information, visit www.usfatep.com

- Story by Anne DeLotto Baier, USF Health Communications
- Photos by Micki Cuppett, EdD, ATC, USF Athletic Training Education

The Department of Pediatrics new simulation center emphasizes multidisciplinary team training for routine and crisis medical scenarios

Dr. John Curran works with a team of residents and neontal nurse to stabilize a "newborn" during a recent emergency simulation exercise at the TEAMS Center.

It was a delivery room complication. The full-term newborn had inhaled meconium, its own feces, on its way out the birth canal and was having trouble breathing.

In a nearby room, USF Health Associate Vice President Dr. John Curran, a veteran pediatrician and neonatologist, was touring the Department of Pediatrics new Team Education and Multidisciplinary Simulation (TEAMS) Center with guest and colleague Dr. David Tayloe, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The 2,300-square-foot facility houses more than $250,000 worth of high-fidelity patient simulators – adults, a child and newborns – each with a computer-driven age-appropriate physiology that can mimic routine and crisis medical scenarios. The life-like mannequins can convulse, turn blue around the mouth, reproduce breathing sounds, recreate variations in blood pressure and heart rate, even secrete blood and other imitation bodily fluids.

With Dr. Tayloe at his side, Dr. Curran was unexpectedly whisked away to the simulation center’s labor and delivery room, where a team of USF neonatologists and an NICU nurse were already working on the tiny patient in distress – a newborn mannequin hooked up to a beeping monitor. In a nearby bed, the mother, an adult-size mannequin, shouts out: “What’s going on with my baby? Is he alright? Why won’t anyone tell me anything?”

Dr. Curran suctions and opens the airway.

Dr. Curran begins ventilation as USF neonatology fellow Dr. Cathy Kotto-Kome performs chest compressions. Assisting at left is neontalogy fellow Yahdira Rodriguez-Prado.

Dr. Latha Kumaraswamy, a neonatology fellow, loads a syringe with epinephrine.

As the senior physician, Dr. Curran steps in to open the newborn’s airway by inserting a breathing tube. When the newborn’s heart rate continues to fall after the tube is inserted, ventilation and CPR compressions are begun. A succession of rapid-fire questions and commands cuts through the tension. Dr. Curran: “Where’s the oxygen?…Give me a good-size tube; you have all kinds of smaller ones.” Nurse: “Have we confirmed placement of the tube?” Neonatology fellow: “It’s good!” Dr. Curran: “Let’s get an umbilical cord line in.” Nurse: “Can we get a dose of epinephrine?” Neonatology fellow: “Epi in.” Nurse: “Heart rate coming up… Let’s call NICU and tell them we’re bringing a baby over and have a ventilator ready!”

Outside the room, TEAMS Center Director Laura Haubner, MD, and coordinator Jason Fields, punch up different angles of the scene on a computer monitor for better views of the team at work and control the infant’s vital signs as the drill unfolds. Once Dr. Haubner is satisfied with the team’s response, she brings up the baby’s heart rate with a few clicks of the computer mouse.

Above: USF pediatrician Dr. Laura Haubner, director of the TEAMS Center, and Jason Fields, center coordinator, monitor the team's responses from a control station outside the L&D room. Below: They punch up different views on a computer screen as the emergency scenario unfolds and record for evaluation after the simulation exercise.

Following the emergency scenario, Dr. Haubner ushers the team and residents who observed the simulation into the center’s conference room, where she facilitates a debriefing. The health professionals watch a replay of their performance on a giant screen, critique their strengths and weaknesses, and discuss what they’ve learned. Dr. Haubner prods with questions: “When the heart rate dropped to 35, what were you thinking?... Were the chest compressions and ventilation well coordinated?... Do you feel you called for help readily enough?”

The debriefings are often an “eye-opening” experience for physicians and nurses, said Dr. Haubner, an assistant professor of pediatrics. “The teaching points elicited by the videotape can be very powerful. They get a sense of how important it is to set roles for each team member in advance and clearly designate a team leader.”

Dr. Haubner leads the team in a post-simulation debriefing, where members can critique their performance replayed on a giant screen.

Seated next to Dr. Terri Ashmeade (left), USF assistant professor of pediatrics and TGH NICU medical director, and Jason Fields (right), TEAMS coordinator, Dr. Curran poses a question to the group based on a rare, real-life delivery complication he experienced.

The center is intended to do more than allow physicians, nurses and medical students to practice, hone or retool their clinical skills in an environment without risk to real patients. “We strategically teach them how to deal with conflict and emotional distractions in both routine and crisis situations,” Dr. Haubner said.

The simulation team training focuses on multidisciplinary group dynamics, leadership, interpersonal communications skills and decision making under pressure, and emphasizes using all available information, equipment and people to achieve safe and efficient outcomes. “This crew resources management approach has traditionally been used by high stakes industries like aviation and nuclear power for simulation training, but it’s slowly being adapted by medicine, Dr. Haubner said. “We’re pretty high stakes too.”

The potential benefit for patient safety and improved outcomes is huge, she said. “According to the Institute of Medicine, most medical errors are based on lack of teamwork and miscommunication, not caused by inadequate medical knowledge.”

Dr. Curran with Dr. Paul Tayloe, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who observed the emergency L&D simulation during his visit to the TEAMS Center July 23. Dr. Tayloe earlier that morning had delivered the annual John S. Curran Lectureship, speaking to USF pediatrics faculty and residents about health reform.

Dr. Tayloe, who observed the emergency scenario and debriefing, was impressed by what he saw. “This is great. I can see how this type of simulation training would help take a lot of the anxiety out of having to walk into a real-life emergency and respond effectively as part of a team,” he said. “But keep in mind, if you find yourself practicing in a rural area, usually you are the team and must be able to save a baby’s life on your own. I still advise residents to take plenty of call in the delivery room!”

Housed on the first floor of the 17 Davis Building, the TEAMS Center formally opened July 1 and is operated by the Department of Pediatrics with support from the Office of Graduate Medical Education. It has been used by more than 130 USF faculty, residents and fellows -- primarily from Pediatrics, Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine -- as well advanced registered nurse practitioners and respiratory therapists from Tampa General Hospital. The center expects to expand its simulation training to more health professionals and disciplines in the coming months, Dr. Haubner said.

Using one of the center's task-trainer simulators, third-year pediatrics resident Dr. Karolina Dembinski practices placing an umbilical catheter, used to deliver medications and fluids to critically ill infants, as neonatology fellow Luis Munoz observes.

In addition to Dr. Haubner and Jason Fields, TEAMS Center faculty include Brad Peckler, MD, from Emergency Medicine (Team Health), and Erika Abel, MD, USF assistant professor and program director of Med-Peds. For more information, please contact Dr. Haubner at lhaubner@health.usf.edu, or Jason Fields at jfields@health.usf.edu.

- Story by Anne DeLotto Baier, USF Health Communications
- Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications

CLEARWATER, Fla. (June 22, 2009) -- The new USF-Morton Plant Mease Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship will start its first fellow next month after recently receiving full accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

Fellows are doctors who are receiving specialized graduate medical education in a subspecialty. They already have completed medical school and graduate training, or residency, in a primary specialty.

“We’re delighted to be able to train more doctors for careers in sports medicine,” said Dr. Eric Coris, director of the University of South Florida’s Sports Medicine Division, co-director of the fellowship, and associate professor of family medicine. “With a population that is aging but also more active, there’s an incredible need for more physicians who can care for people with athletic injuries and help them stay healthy and active.”

The fellowship program will be based at the Turley Family Health Center in Clearwater. The health center, operated by Morton Plant Mease, provides comprehensive health care services to a diverse group of patients without regard to a patient’s ability to pay.

“The program will offer the fellows the opportunity to learn in various training environments,” said Dr. Sean Bryan, co-director of the fellowship and a USF affiliate associate professor of family medicine.

“This is a best of both worlds situation,” Dr. Bryan said. “Imagine having the resources of a strong community health system and a major academic health center at your disposal.”
Fellows will receive training from USF primary care sports medicine faculty as well as from USF and community orthopedic surgeons, cardiologists, other specialists and allied health professionals, Dr. Bryan said.

“We understand that to provide the best care for athletes, you need a multi-disciplinary team approach,” he said.

As part of their training, the fellows will help support community sports events and activities, including the St. Anthony’s Triathlon and the Morton Plant Mease Triathlon. They’ll also help care for students in USF Athletics, under the supervision of USF faculty members.

“We’re fortunate to have access to a wide range of athletes in high school, Division I college, professional baseball, football and multiple triathlons. This will provide significant depth to our training,” Dr. Bryan said.

Core faculty members for the fellowship will include: Dr. Bryan; Dr. Coris; Dr. Ted Farrar, associate director of the fellowship; and Dr. Michelle Pescasio, assistant director of the fellowship.

The USF College of Medicine created the USF Sports Medicine Institute, which is dedicated to caring for athletes of all ages and skill levels, as well as people who are physically active at home and at work. The institute’s providers offer diagnosis and treatment of all athletic injuries, as well as expert pre-sports participation exams.

Nationally recognized for health care excellence, Morton Plant Mease Health Care is dedicated to providing community owned health care services that set the standard for high-quality, compassionate care. Morton Plant Mease Health Care is comprised of the following hospitals – Morton Plant, Clearwater; Mease Dunedin, Dunedin; Mease Countryside, Safety Harbor and Morton Plant North Bay, New Port Richey.

About USF Health
USF Health is dedicated to creating a model of health care based on understanding the full spectrum of health. It includes the University of South Florida’s colleges of medicine, nursing, and public health; the schools of biomedical sciences as well as physical therapy & rehabilitation sciences; and the USF Physicians Group. With more than $360 million in research grants and contracts last year, USF is one of the nation’s top 63 public research universities and one of 39 community-engaged, four-year public universities designated by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

About Morton Plant Mease
Nationally recognized for health care excellence, Morton Plant Mease Health Care is dedicated to providing community owned health care services that set the standard for high-quality, compassionate care. Morton Plant Mease Health Care is comprised of the following hospitals – Morton Plant, Clearwater; Mease Dunedin, Dunedin; Mease Countryside, Safety Harbor and Morton Plant North Bay, New Port Richey.

Medical students Kiran Kondaveeti, Ani Chawdry and Christian Robles lead a presentation at Thursday's Diversity Learning Lunch.

Bringing more minorities into the health care professions will do more than just make those professions more diverse, a group of USF medical students said at a campus forum Thursday.

It could save lives.

When doctors and patients can’t understand each other, whether because of language or cultural barriers, the patients suffer, said three first-year medical students who led Thursday’s Diversity Learning Lunch seminar. All three students – Christian Robles, Ani Chawdry, and Kiran Kondaveeti – are studying in the medical school’s scholarly concentration in health disparities.

The trio presented a video about the difficulties that Florida farm workers face in getting access to health care. They also reminded their audience of some sobering statistics, showing that death rates for young adult Hispanics and African-Americans are signficiantly higher than those for young adult whites.

Part of the answer to solving that problem, they said, is to bring more minorities into the health care field.

“If you don’t have good communication between doctors and patients, it’s going to create problems,” Kondaveeti said.

That task has challenges as well. African-Americans represent over 12 percent of the U.S. population, but only 4.4 percent of doctors; Hispanics, 12.5 percent of the population and only 5.1 percent of doctors. Those groups lag behind in medical school enrollment as well.

Students attending Thursday's lunch included Alyssa Brown, right.

Minority students face more obstacles in education, income and language on the path to medical school, the Council on Graduate Medical Education has found. But Robles pointed out that the council noted a bright spot. Those students who stay in school are just as likely as their white counterparts to go on to medical school.

The group discussed ways to help minority students reach medical school.

“Maybe having students like us go out into the community and show them that it is possible to become a doctor,” Robles said. “No one is showing them what they can become.”

Group members also stressed that every medical student needs to think about diversity. African-American doctors will see Asian and white patients as well as black ones, pointed out Alyssa Brown, a third-year medical student who attended Thursday’s forum.

“As a physician, it will be important that I’m comfortable treating all my patients,” she said.

The event was organized by the Office of Student Diversity and Enrichment.

-- Story by Lisa Greene, USF Health Communications
-- Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications

USF Health’s Division of Allergy and Immunology will create a pilot educational program to train fellows how to use fiberoptic rhinopharyngolaryngoscopy (rhinoscopy for short) to evaluate upper airway diseases. The program, which will combine streaming-video lectures with hands-on procedure training, was the first of its kind approved by the national Residency Review Committee.

“We are in a position to set up a program to train all other Allergy and Immunology training programs in North America as experts in the area of rhinoscopy, an essential part of our specialty’s practice,” said Division Director Richard Lockey, MD, professor of medicine who oversees the USF Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Training Program.

Upon successful implementation of the novel online educational module, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s RRC will extend the A & I training program’s recent reaccreditation from five to 10 years. “If we did not have such an excellent record with the ACGME, this distinction would not be possible,” Dr. Lockey said.

Rhinoscopy, performed by inserting a thin flexible tube into the nasal passage, uses a fiberoptic light to examine inside the nose and throat. It can help the physician identify problems that may not be detected by X-ray or CT scan, including sinus infections, nasal polyps, laryngeal evidence of acid reflux and vocal cord dysfunction. It can evaluate if medications are working or if surgery is needed.

While proficiency in rhinoscopy is not yet a requirement for graduate medical education in allergy and immunology, recent advances in technology have increased its usefulness as a diagnostic technique for chronic upper respiratory diseases. Yet, less than 30 percent of the 71 A&I programs in North America have the resources to teach the endoscopic procedure to their physicians in training, said Mark Glaum, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Allergy and Immunology.

Dr. Glaum, who developed USF’s proposal with colleagues Roger Fox, MD, and Dennis Ledford, MD, presented the proposed pilot project to A&I program directors at their winter meeting in San Antonio, TX, earlier this year. “It was very well received,” he said. “Meaningful training in rhinoscopy represents an important skill and current curriculum gap in many programs… Our program may be a new modality to help physicians-in-training based in more rural areas without access to certain technology, equipment and expertise.”

The USF Division of Allergy and Immunology will prepare a web-based educational module including online lectures and instructional video demonstrating rhinoscopy for evaluation of upper airway diseases. The program will be offered through streaming video on the A&I Division website and available to download onto mobile computer devices, like PDAs and smartphones, through Apple’s iTunes U website. This online content will reinforce and be coordinated with hands-on rhinoscopy training sessions at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAI) and American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) meetings.

USF will evaluate the pilot program’s effectiveness by surveying A &I program directors and fellowship graduates who did and did not participate in the project.

The Division plans to roll out the online course by January 2010 and couple it with the hands-on rhinoscopy workshop at the 2010 AAAI annual meeting in New Orleans, LA.

- Story by Anne DeLotto Baier, USF Health Communications