Click here to read about Dr. Lezama's recognition in ACP Hospitalist.

USF Health’s Jose Lezama, MD, FACP, has been named one of the nation’s top 10 hospitalists in the November 2009 issue of ACP Hospitalist, a publication of the American College of Physicians.

Dr. Lezama, associate professor of internal medicine at USF Health and chief of medicine at the James Haley Veterans’ Hospital, was one of two physicians in the Southeast (and the only one in Florida) to be honored in the journal’s second annual Top Hospitalists issue. A hospitalist is a physician, without a private outside practice, whose time is devoted solely to caring for hospitalized patients.

The journal solicited nominations from its readership – hospital-based internists and third-year medicine residents – last spring and summer, asking for hospitalists making notable contributions to the field of hospital medicine, whether through clinical skills, research, innovation, teamwork, community involvement, improved work flow, patient safety, leadership, mentorship or quality improvement. The editorial board reviewed the nominations and selected the top 10, including Dr. Lezama, who are profiled in the November issue.

“He is an outstanding physician with more dedication to his patients than I have seen in my career from anyone else,” said Alexander I. Reiss, ACP member and a colleague who nominated Dr. Lezama as a Top Hospitalist. “His contributions as an expert at our medical morning report have established him as the ‘go-to guy’ for difficult cases and advice for younger faculty.”

One of the youngest chiefs of medicine in the nation in one of the country’s busiest VA hospitals, Dr. Lezama is known for his ability to motivate and inspire younger physicians. He was among 42 doctors nationwide nominated by his peers for the 2007 Humanism in Medicine Award, sponsored by the American Association of Medical Colleges. His board review series has been instrumental in boosting resident pass rates for the past seven years, and USF internal medicine residents have voted him Teacher of the Year for five years running.

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- Dr. Jose Lezama: Life on the Hyphen
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The NBC cameraman sets up a shot in one of CACL's exam rooms, flanked by fourth-year medical student Catherine Kubiak. TODAY Show reporter Jenna Wolfe (sitting left), playing the role of a standardized patient, listens.

USF Health’s Center for Advanced Clinical Learning (CACL) was featured on the national television program, NBC’s Today Show, this Monday, Nov. 16.

TODAY Show co-anchor and national correspondent Jenna Wolfe visited USF Health on September 29th to step into the shoes of the center's standardized patient program – folks who are hired and trained to serve as a patient and act out an illness. Opened in 2005, the center was developed to both teach and evaluate students on their clinical and patient communication skills. The comprehensive standardized patient program allows students to practice healthcare skills with real "patients" in a risk-free medical environment. It also emphasizes communication and interpersonal skills vital to patient safety, satisfaction and quality care.

Jenna donned a medical gown and jumped right into role play, learning from Dawn M. Schocken director of the Center for Advanced Clinical Learning, and Fred Slone, MD, the center's medical director. We won’t give away the details of how Jenna survived her experience; you’ll have to watch!

TODAY Show's Wolfe (far right) meets with CACL directors and standardized patients before the shoot.

Discussing her patient case scenario with Dr. Fred Slone, CACL medical director, and Dawn Schocken, director.

The cameraman zooms in for closeup of Wolfe talking with Dawn Schocken.
TODAY Show producer Lindsay Grubb (left) checks her emails.

Getting some standardized patient tips from Schocken.

Checking out SimMan, one of CACL's state-of-the-art patient simulators.

Wolfe evaluates the USF medical student who examined her.

TODAY Show crew with USF Health faculty, staff and students involved in the standardized patient production.

- About the Center -

The Center for Advanced Clinical Learning has 12 state-of-the-art clinical examination rooms, all equipped with advanced digital video monitoring as well as a closed circuit computerized evaluation system, with computer capabilities both inside the room as well as a student station immediately outside the clinical room. Each room is linked on a master video monitoring display in the control room, as well as having accessibility in the Video Monitoring Room itself. This year the center has had 36,000 standardized patient visits with a bank of 167 cases that represent a different medical ailment.

- Story by Susanna Martinez Tarokh, USF Health Communications
- Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications

The USF Division of Infectious Disease and International Medicine reached a milestone this month with the posting of its 100th podcast, “MRSA: From Humanosis to Zoonosis.”

The podcast appears on the division-sponsored website www.idpodcasts.net, which contains a series of video lectures presented by the staff, faculty, or affiliated guests of the Division. The site was co-founded by John Sinnott, MD, division director, and webmaster Richard Oehler, MD, associate professor of medicine, in 2007.

The newest podcast features Dr Oehler, who discusses the growing problem of MRSA, staph infections resistant to antibiotics, transmitted from dogs and cats to their owners. The issue received worldwide media attention this summer when it was written about by Dr. Oehler and colleagues in a review article for The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Other recent topics covered by IDPodcasts.net have included 2009 H1N1 Flu: Seasonal Flu with a Twist, Food Safety in America, and A Global Swarming: Infectious Disease and Climate Change.

Below are some site stats obtained by Dr. Oehler from www.statsrely.com:

• IDPodcasts.net received more than 6,500 hits since August, 2007 (month Division started tracking web hits)

• Among the top 3 more requested infectious diseases podcasts on Itunes, along with the series produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Lancet.

• The top search result on Google for "Infectious Diseases Podcasts" and in the top 2 for "USF Podcast."

• Commercially-free, university supported, and up-to-date scientific content by more than 20 academic faculty

• Averages 9 to 10 hits per day, about 250 to 260 a month

• This year, averaged approximately 170 new visitors per month and over 2,000 a year

• 86 percent of visitors are from the United States; 13 percent from international locations

• Visitors from 27 countries including India, Singapore, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Peru

The $117-million award will go to the data coordinating center at USF and 19 consortia

The National Institutes of Health recently announced a second phase of its Rare Disease Clinical Research Network (RDCRN), which includes a Data Management Coordinating Center led by the University of South Florida’s Jeffrey Krischer, PhD. The USF center and 19 new and returning consortia will be awarded $117 million over the next five years. The research conducted with this second round of funding will explore the natural history, epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment of more than 95 rare diseases.

Dr. Krischer, professor and chief of epidemiology and biostatistics for the USF Department of Pediatrics, has been principal investigator for the RDCRN’s data coordinating center from its start. Under his leadership, USF has become the hub for epidemiological research in both rare diseases and juvenile diabetes and garnered world-wide attention as a model for large-scale clinical research. The consortia within the RDCRN funnel their data to USF for collection, storage, management and analysis.

USF has received nearly $15.3 million for the NIH’s rare diseases research initiative over the last five years. With this second phase of funding, Dr. Krischer expects to receive another $15 million over the next five years as data from the new studies come in.

"The great success of the first five years meant we coordinated 10 networks of studies. We'll now nearly double this to 19 networks,” Dr. Krischer said. “We built a foundation that we're now expanding to many more diseases, many more countries, and designing studies that will help many more patients. It’s a testimony to the methods we’ve developed at USF that we can now expand into new areas of study.”

“We built our strength in autoimmune disorders,” Dr. Krischer added. “This new funding will expand our scope to primary immune disorders and immune-mediated disorders, as well as many others that we don’t understand well. Some are genetic and some simply have unknown causes. By looking at these rare diseases, we can look at the different facets of the immune system and the role it plays in health.”

"The progress made by researchers through the network is important and impressive," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD. "We have shown that this approach can be a catalyst for progress in meeting the challenge of rare diseases, and we are eager to launch this next phase of the program."

Since its creation in 2003, the RDCRN has enrolled more than 5,000 patients in 33 clinical studies of various rare diseases, ranging from ataxias and primary immune deficiency disorders to inherited neuropathies and mitochondrial diseases. A rare disease is defined as a disease or condition affecting fewer than 200,000 persons in the United States. Approximately 6,500 such disorders have been identified, affecting an estimated 25 million Americans.

The RDCRN is unique in its approach to addressing rare diseases as a group. Previously, the NIH's institutes and centers funded research on individual rare diseases in their respective disease-type or organ domains. The RDCRN is the first program that aims to create a specialized infrastructure to support rare diseases research.

Patient recruitment for clinical studies is a fundamental challenge in rare diseases research because typically so few patients are affected in any one area. The RDCRN was designed to address this problem by fostering collaboration among scientists and shared access to geographically distributed research resources. Network consortia have also established training programs for clinical investigators who are interested in rare diseases research.

"Collaboration is a critical element of rare diseases research and the partnerships represented in this program have tremendous potential to make great strides in understanding these diseases," said Stephen C. Groft, PharmD, director of NIH's Office of Rare Diseases Research (ORDR). "The network emphasizes collaboration not just among investigators from multiple research sites but between investigators and patient advocates as well."

The direct involvement of patient advocacy groups in network operations, activities, and strategy is a major feature of the RDCRN. Each consortium in the network includes relevant patient advocacy groups in the consortium membership and activities. These patient advocacy group representatives serve as research partners within their own consortia.

Funds and scientific oversight for the RDCRN will be provided by ORDR and seven NIH Institutes, which will also contribute considerable administrative support to the network: the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Several consortia will also receive financial support from their associated patient advocacy groups.

In the RDCRN's first phase, the network's Data and Technology Coordinating Center (DTCC) led by Dr. Krischer developed a management system for the collection, storage, and analysis of RDCRC data, and additional systems to address needs of individual studies, such as a laboratory data collection system, a specimen tracking system, and a pharmacy management system (to support blinded distribution of study agents and placebos).

The DTCC also created RDCRN's central public Web site, developed as a portal for the rare diseases community, including patients and their families and health care professionals, to provide information on rare disease research, consortium activities, RDCRN-approved protocols, disease information, and practice guidelines. Located at http://rarediseasesnetwork.epi.usf.edu/, the Web site had over 3.4 million visits in 2008. The RDCRN DTCC also developed a unique voluntary patient registry that provides ongoing contact with approximately 5,000 individuals from over 60 countries representing 42 diseases, alerting them when new studies are opened in the network or when ongoing studies expand to new sites.

In this second phase of the RDCRN, USF will continue these data management efforts, under a new name and with a slightly different charge, as the Data Management Coordinating Center (DMCC). The DMCC will develop uniform investigative clinical research protocols for data collection in collaboration with the RDCRN Steering Committee, monitor protocol adherence, data collection and data submission, and work with the each consortium's Data and Safety Monitoring Boards to establish protocols for adverse events notification and reporting.

Sexual health researcher working with young adults is selected for prestigious
program to advance careers of nation’s most promising junior nurse faculty

Versie Johnson-Mallard, PhD, ARNP, assistant professor in the USF College of Nursing, has won a competitive grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to study strategies to prevent the spread of viral sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among college students and young adults.

Dr. Johnson-Mallard is one of just 15 nurse educators from around the country to receive the three-year $350,000 Nurse Faculty Scholar award this year, which is given to junior faculty who show outstanding promise as future leaders in academic nursing. The grant period begins this month.

“The generous support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will enable me to test an innovative web-based sexual health education intervention and hopefully slow the spread of viral sexually transmitted infections on college campuses,” Dr. Johnson-Mallard said.

In her research, Dr. Johnson-Mallard will develop a PowerPoint educational intervention STI prevention messaging presentation on the Human Papillomavirus, Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV), Hepatitis B (HepB), and Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV). This intervention will be delivered in an innovative web messaging format. Follow-up surveys will determine whether students exposed to the innovative format, are more knowledgeable about the diseases, had a better understanding of the risks associated, and were more likely to take prevention measures such as vaccinations, abstinence and condom use.

Ultimately, she hopes to use her findings to develop a standard electronic prevention-education protocol for use on college campuses.

Cecile Lengacher, PhD, professor at the USF College of Nursing, and Anna Giuliano, PhD, a researcher at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, will serve as her mentors.

“Instead of having to stand in front of a poster on campus or read a brochure in a doctor’s office, this project will enable college students to learn about viral sexually transmitted infections in private settings, through an electronic format,” Dr. Lengacher said. “This will hopefully give them more time to study the materials and more knowledge about the diseases, which will hopefully lead to lower rates of infection.”

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Nurse Faculty Scholar award aims to strengthen the academic productivity and overall excellence of nursing schools by developing the next generation of national leaders in academic nursing.

Supporting junior nurse faculty will help curb a severe shortage of nurse educators that threatens to undermine the health and health care of all Americans. Many nursing schools lack the resources needed to hire and support enough faculty to train the next generation of nurses. As a result, nursing schools are turning away thousands of qualified applicants—rejecting the very people who can help reverse a serious looming nurse shortage. As the supply of nurses shrinks and the demand for their services grows, patient care will suffer.

The Foundation’s Nurse Faculty Scholars program aims to curb the effects of the nursing shortage by helping more junior faculty succeed in, and commit to, academic careers. The program provides talented junior faculty with salary and research support as well as the chance to participate in institutional and national mentoring activities, leadership training, and networking events with colleagues in nursing and other fields, while continuing to teach and provide institutional, professional and community service in their universities.

The program will also enhance the stature of the scholars’ academic institutions, which will benefit fellow nurse educators seeking professional development opportunities.

To receive the award, scholars must be registered nurses who have completed a research doctorate in nursing or a related discipline and who have held a tenure-eligible faculty position at an accredited nursing school for at least two and no more than five years.
The program is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and administered through the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. To learn more about the program, visit www.rwjfnursefacultyscholars.org.

In a newly published ranking, the University of South Florida was the nation’s fastest growing university for federal research funds, 2000-2007. The top ranking was reported in the annual Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac (Aug. 28, 2009).

Specifically, between 2000 and 2007, the Chronicle reports that USF grew 213 percent in "federal funds for academic research and development.” This was by far the highest percentage increase in the country.

“This means that during those seven years, no other American university grew its federal research at a faster rate than USF,” USF President Judy Genshaft said in her recent President’s Report to alumni. “Most importantly, no other group of faculty had a faster rate of earning new federal sponsorship for discovery and the creation of knowledge.”

It’s a big jump in a short time: In fiscal year 2000, USF’s expenditures of federal funds were $50.5 million. By FY 2007, those expenditures had risen to more than $158.4 million.

Federally-sponsored research for all universities is counted by the National Science Foundation, from which this report was derived.

President Genshaft will discuss USF's continued research success, including the contributions of USF Health, Sept. 9 at 3 p.m. in the Marshall Center Ballroom. You are welcome to attend or watch via a link at www.usf.edu

In the Tampa area, more than a quarter (28 percent) of the physicians who made the 2009 Best Doctors in America list works at USF Health.

And when you include the generous volunteer faculty members (those who teach medical students or residents several times each year) and College of Medicine alumni in private practice locally, the numbers go up even more – 48 percent of the list has a connection with USF Health.

The annual list for Best Doctors in America is compiled from surveys of physicians asking them who they would go to for treatment in their specialty. The result is a national listing of 50,000 physicians in more than 400 specialties.

This year, the list included 590 physicians from the Tampa Bay area. Of that 161 are full-time, courtesy or adjunct physicians for USF. The list also included 78 physicians who are volunteer faculty members for USF and 57 alumni of the USF College of Medicine (some of the physicians in other categories are also alumni but were counted only in their faculty category), bringing the total to 295 physicians (48 percent) who have a connection with USF Health.

“Our faculty physicians continue to dominate the Best Doctors in America list and families throughout the Tampa Bay area are the ones who benefit most,” said Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, dean of the USF College of Medicine and CEO of USF Health.

“These doctors have an incredible impact on the healthcare provided in this community. We couldn’t be more proud of our USF docs and are thankful for all they do.”

USF Health boasts the area’s largest medical practice, with more than 400 physicians treating this region’s residents. They see nearly 350,000 patients each year in dozens of medical facilities – large and small – along the Florida Gulf Coast.

The following is a list of physicians included in the 2009 Best Doctors in America who have a connection to USF Health. Some physicians earned spots in more than one specialty, so this list will total more.

Allergy and Immunology
Morna Jean Dorsey
Roger Williams Fox
Mark Christian Glaum
Alan Barton Halsey
Craig Andrew Kalik
Dennis K. Ledford
Richard F. Lockey
Elena Elizabeth Perez
Mitchel Seleznick
Mandel Reid Sher

Anesthesiology
Alan David Almengual
Enrico M. Camporesi
Rafael Miguel
David Jeffrey Samuels

Cardiovascular Disease
Anne B. Curtis
Debbie Rinde-Hoffman

Colon and Rectal Surgery
Jorge E. Marcet

Critical Care Medicine
W. McDowell Anderson
Allan L. Goldman
Mark Rumbak
David Allan Solomon
Frank W. Walsh

Dermatology
Teresa Pullara Brandt
Basil S. Cherpelis
Peter A. Donelan
Lowella E. Esperanza
Neil Alan Fenske
L. Frank Glass
Timothy Francis Kelly
Stacy Perez
Philip D. Shenefelt

Endocrinology and Metabolism
David Ralph Leonard

Family Medicine
Colin S. Beach
Harrison James Brownlee, Jr.
Adam A. Brunson
Sean T. Bryan
Eric Emmanuel Coris
Thomas E. Esposito
Bruce J. Flareau
Eduardo C. Gonzalez
Pamela C. Grover
Frederic J. Guerrier
Russell M. Hostetler
George E. Hutter
Richard J. Ina
Paul Lewis
Candice C. Linton
Dolores K. Lowe
Yves Morency
John V. Murray, Jr.
Linda P. Murray
Michele D. Pescasio
Joel S. Prawer
Cheryl Reed
Richard G. Roetzheim
Diane M. Rogers
Robert B. Rosequist
Joseph P. Springle
Frank Allan Thompson
Ronald Vicencio
Laurie J. Woodard
Kira Katherine Zwygart

Gastroenterology
H. Worth Boyce, Jr.
Patrick G. Brady
Jay J. Mamel
H. Juergen Nord
Haim Pinkas

Geriatric Medicine
Claudia Beghé-Balducci
John A. Frutchey
June Y. Leland
Hae Kyoung Park
Vincent D. Perron
Ronald Scott Schonwetter

Hand Surgery
Robert John Belsole

Infectious Disease
Margarita Rosa Cancio
Beata C. Herman Casanas
John N. Greene
Daniel Haight
Douglas Allen Holt
Julie Larkin
Jose Montero
John Thomas Sinnott
Chararut Somboonwit
Todd S. Wills

Internal Medicine
Harold M. Adelman
Donald Behnke
Bryan Bognar
Kent R. Corral
Mark Allen Davis
Michael T. Flannery
Kathleen Moss Grizzard
Carol A. Hodges
Richard P. Hoffmann
Deborah A. Humphrey
Jeffrey A. Kooper
Jose (Joe) L. Lezama, Jr.
Cuc Thi Mai
Hugo J. Narvarte
Kevin O'Brien
Lucila Ramiro
Alexander Reiss
Mitchel Seleznick
Elizabeth A. Warner
David Weiland
Susan M. Zimmer

Nephrology
Denise Y. Alveranga
Samuel Steven Weinstein

Neurological Surgery
Mark Greenberg
Kenneth Louis
Donald A. Smith
Fernando L. Vale
Harry R. van Loveren

Neurology
Selim Ramin Benbadis
Edmund Guy Grant, Jr.
Robert A. Hauser
Jan K. Korthals
Kenneth Louis
Juan R. Sanchez-Ramos
Michael Allan Sloan
Paul R. Winters

Obstetrics and Gynecology
Jeffrey L. Angel
Ignacio Armas
Marc A. Bernhisel
Jeffrey K. Carlson
Mitchel S. Hoffman
Michael W. Jaeger
Galen Bruce Jones
Mary Lee Josey
Craig S. Kalter
David L. Keefe
Catherine M. Lynch
Anthony M. Messina
Anna Kristina Parsons
Michael Thomas Parsons
Shayne M. Plosker
James C. Von Thron
J. Kell Williams

Ophthalmology
Craig Berger
Christine E. Callahan
Leonard Edward Cortelli, Jr.
Mitchell D. Drucker
Lewis Groden
Steven Abraham Gross
Geoffrey Malcom Kwitko
Scott E. Pautler
Peter Reed Pavan
Thomas J. Pusateri
David W. Richards
Charles B. Slonim

Orthopaedic Surgery
Glen A. Barden
Brett R. Bolhofner
William G. Carson, Jr.
Heidi Multhopp Stephens

Otolaryngology
Loren J. Bartels
Kestutis Paul Boyev
Thomas Vincent McCaffrey
Tapan Ashvin Padhya
Daniel Vincent

Pain Medicine
Rafael Miguel

Pathology
Jane Messina
Michael Morgan
Santo V. Nicosia

Pediatric Allergy and Immunology
Alan Barton Halsey
Craig Andrew Kalik
Mandel Reid Sher
John W. Sleasman

Pediatric Anesthesiology
George Garcia Alvarez
Michael A. Garcia

Pediatric Cardiac Surgery
James Anthony Quintessenza

Pediatric Cardiology
Alfred Asante-Korang
Jorge Manuel Giroud
James Gifford Henry
Richard Manuel Martinez
Jorge McCormack

Pediatric Critical Care
David Seth Cooper
Perry Boyd Everett
Mark Allan Nichter
David Pettigrew
Daniel J. Plasencia
Dan Riggs
Albert Saltiel
Richard E. Weibley

Pediatric Endocrinology
Barry B. Bercu
Terry J. DeClue
Frank B. Diamond, Jr.
E. Verena Jorgensen
John I. Malone
Allen W. Root
Dorothy I. Shulman

Pediatric Gastroenterology
Daniel T. McClenathan
L. Julio Reinstein

Pediatric Hematology-Oncology
Jerry L. Barbosa
Michael L. Nieder

Pediatric Infectious Disease
David Michael Berman
Juan Dumois
Patricia Emmanuel

Pediatric Nephrology
Alfonso Campos
Valerie M. Panzarino
Sharon A. Perlman

Pediatric Neurological Surgery
Carolyn M. Carey
Sarah J. Gaskill
Arthur E. Marlin

Pediatric Nutrition
L. Julio Reinstein

Pediatric Ophthalmology
Magda Barsoum-Homsy
Steven Abraham Gross
Derek B. Hess

Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery
Jeffrey B. Neustadt

Pediatric Otolaryngology
Thomas M. Andrews
Wade Russell Cressman

Pediatric Plastic Surgery
Ernesto Ruas

Pediatric Pulmonology
Anthony Kriseman

Pediatric Rheumatology
Robert W. Nickeson, Jr.
Mandel Reid Sher
John W. Sleasman

Pediatric Specialist/Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Jeffrey L. Alvaro
Michael Bengtson
Glenn Catalano
Mark A. Cavitt
Steven Noah Kanfer
Tanya K. Murphy
Kailie R. Shaw
Saundra Stock

Pediatric Specialist/Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
Alastair A. Hutchison
Anthony E. Napolitano, Jr.
Lewis P. Rubin

Pediatrics Specialist/Neurology, General
Joseph A. Casadonte
Maria A. Gieron-Korthals
J. Richard Gunderman
Steven Parrish Winesett

Pediatric Urology
Yves L. Homsy

Pediatrics/General
Dipti Patel Amin
Melody M. Baade
Lori A. Bowers
Jose E. Colon
Sharon M. Dabrow
Rani S. Gereige
Gabriele Hosemann
Gerard R. Hough
Patricia L. Jeansonne
Karalee Kulek-Luzey
Mudra K. Kumar
Katherine Lewis
Carol Lilly
Hugo J. Narvarte
Emily T. Perkins
Domenick P. Reina
Christopher D. Reiner
Lynnette N. Ringenberg
Antoinette C. Spoto-Cannons
Jennifer Cohen Takagishi
Christopher L. Tappan
Marianne Trubelhorn

Plastic Surgery
Henry Arvil Redmon
Ernesto Ruas
Karen E. Wells

Psychiatry
Jeffrey L. Alvaro
Glenn Catalano
Maria C. Catalano
Mark A. Cavitt
James R. Edgar
Francisco Fernandez
Jaffrey Hashimie
Steven Noah Kanfer
Tanya K. Murphy
Pauline S. Powers
Deborah C. Roth
David V. Sheehan
Michael Finbar Sheehan
Amanda Grant Smith
Jonathan Taylor Stewart

Pulmonary Medicine
W. McDowell Anderson
Claudia G. Cote
Allan L. Goldman
Daniel Lorch
Richard S. Powell
Mark Rumbak
David Allan Solomon
Frank W. Walsh

Radiation Oncology
Harvey M. Greenberg

Radiology
John A. Arrington
Carlos R. Martinez
Frederick Reed Murtagh
Bruce R. Zwiebel

Rheumatology
Harold M. Adelman
John D. Carter
Laura Cruse
Dennis K. Ledford
Mitchel Seleznick
Kimberly M. Smith
Joanne Valeriano-Marcet

Sleep Medicine
W. McDowell Anderson
Daniel Lorch

Surgery
Michael H. Albrink
Sylvia Deal Campbell
Charles E. Cox
Steven B. Goldin
Michel Murr
Ernest C. Rehnke
Alexander S. Rosemurgy II
David H. Shapiro
Larry R. Williams
Terry E. Wright

Surgical Oncology
Charles E. Cox
Carl Wayne Cruse

Urology
Jorge L. Lockhart

Vascular Surgery
Martin R. Back
Dennis F. Bandyk
John L. Driscoll
Brad Larvin Johnson
Ernest C. Rehnke
Murray L. Shames
Larry R. Williams

Story by Sarah A. Worth, USF Health Communications

USF professor Jay Dean with Naval officers at the tour of the newly-renovated USF hyperbaric lab.

An astronaut, several Naval officers and scientists from Israel, Belgium, Norway and the U.K. were among those crowding into the hyperbaric labs at the USF College of Medicine Thursday evening.

     The scientists, in Tampa for a conference on undersea medicine, were treated to a reception and tour of the newly-renovated lab, as well as a talk by Dr. Jay Dean, USF professor of molecular pharmacology and physiology, and Dr. Jay Buckey, a professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and a former astronaut. Dr. Buckey spent 16 days orbiting the Earth as a payload specialist in 1998 on the STS90 neurolab mission.

      "It's a great facility," Dr. Buckey said Thursday, as he stood next to one of Dr. Dean's hyperbaric chambers. "The part with the atomic force microscope - that's unique. It takes the field to a new level."

     While Dr. Dean's work, studying how changes in pressure affect the brain, is often applied to diving, Dr. Buckey said it can help astronauts as well.

     "You can also get decompression sickness when you go from the Space Station to a space suit," he pointed out.

  Dr. Richard Vann, safety director of the Duke Hyperbaric Center and director of research at the Divers' Alert Network, also liked the new lab.

      "Very impressive," he told Dr. Dean. "You have so much equipment."

     Dr. Dean's lab and office previously occupied different sides of the medical school. The renovation allowed him to consolidate everything into one place and add new equipment.

     "Clearly, their strength is the electrophysiology," Dr. Vann said of the lab. "With this focus, it should be very productive. It's going to answer a lot of basic questions."

Sandra Cadena, PhD

Tampa, FL (Aug. 3, 2009) -- Sandra J. Cadena, PhD, ARNP, assistant professor and director of global health at the University of South Florida College of Nursing, has been selected for a Fulbright Specialists project in Colombia, South America. She will be based at El Bosque University during Fall, 2009 semester, according to the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Dr Cadena will provide consultation to develop a graduate psychiatric/mental health nursing curriculum, expand research projects focused on cultural competency, and provide educational opportunities for nursing faculty and students.

Dr. Cadena is one of over 400 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad this year through the Fulbright Specialists Program. The Fulbright Specialists Program, created in 2000 to complement the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program, provides short-term academic opportunities (two to six weeks) to prominent U.S. faculty and professionals to support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at post secondary, academic institutions around the world.

The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international educational exchange activity, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Over its 60 years of existence, thousands of U.S. faculty and professionals have taught, studied or conducted research abroad, and thousands of their counterparts from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the United States. Over 285,000 emerging leaders in their professional fields have received Fulbright awards, including individuals who later became heads of government, Nobel Prize winners, and leaders in education, business, journalism, the arts and other fields.

Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement. Among the thousands of prominent Fulbright Scholar alumni are Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist; Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet; and Craig Barrett, Chairman of the Board of Intel Corporation. Distinguished Fulbright Specialist participants include Mahmoud Ayoub, Professor of Religion at Temple University, Heidi Hartmann, President and CEO, Institute for Women's Policy Research, Percy R. Luney, Jr. Dean and Professor, College of Law, Florida A&M University, and Emily Vargas-Barone, Founder and Executive Director of the RISE Institute.

- 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.

Dr. Robert Brooks

Tampa, FL (July 20, 2009) -- Dr. Robert Brooks, a nationally recognized patient safety, health informatics and policy scholar, researcher and educator, has been recruited from the Florida State University to USF Health. Dr. Brooks will build upon his well-established research and teaching record and will be professor of medicine and public health and associate vice president for health leadership at USF.

Robert Brooks, MD, MA, MBA, MPH, brings to USF an extensive and intricate working knowledge of academic medicine, curriculum development, student recruitment and advisement, health policy and practice.

“USF will tap Dr. Brooks’ distinctive and well proven academic talents. He will play a directive role in the medical student admissions process as we seek to bring diversity, competence and exceptional quality to our student body. Dr. Brooks will also be responsible for building the health leadership program at USF Health,” said Dr. Stephen Klasko, dean of medicine and CEO of USF Health. “We are exceptionally fortunate to bring Bob Brooks’ talents, knowledge and experience to USF Health.”

A former secretary of health for the state of Florida and a former Florida state legislator, Dr. Brooks has played a significant role in formulating and administering health policy.

“Dr. Brooks brings the rare combination of real scholarship and pragmatic, national leadership to our students and faculty. He will be designing and participating in health policy and leadership research and courses that will provide our public health, medical, nursing and graduate students with insight, knowledge and skills that will benefit them throughout their careers,” said Donna Petersen, ScD, dean of public health at USF.

“Bob is a gifted and dedicated teacher, a highly productive researcher, and a policy architect who has made vital contributions to health improvement in Florida. He has been a singular force in advancing patient safety, health informatics research and data-driven health policy decisions,” said Jay Wolfson, DrPH, JD, USF professor of public health and medicine.

Dr. Brooks will also work with USF’s clinical and research team to design a new system of care to more effectively manage diabetes and other chronic disorders, and to build upon the program of patient safety research with which he has previously collaborated.

USF’s recently announced partnership with the Lehigh Valley Health Network is expected to benefit from Dr. Brooks’ leadership training for medical students. In that program, students from Pennsylvania will attend USF for their first two years of medical school, then return to Lehigh Valley for their third and fourth years of clinical medical education.

At USF Health, Dr. Brooks also will serve as a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases (Department of Internal Medicine) in the College of Medicine and as a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the College of Public Health.

“I am excited to have the opportunity to join the already outstanding executive team assembled by Dean Klasko and to assist USF in its mission to train and equip world-class physicians and other health care professionals to be leaders in the 21st century,” Dr. Brooks said.

Dr. Brooks has served as the associate dean for health affairs at Florida State University, where he helped establish the first new allopathic medical school in the United States in more than 20 years. Since joining FSU in 2001, he has started five separate Centers of Excellence on Terrorism, Public Health, Patient Safety, Rural Health and Global Health.

Dr. Brooks was appointed Florida’s secretary of health in 1999. He had previously served in the Florida House of Representatives and as chief of infectious diseases at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

A Michigan native, Dr. Brooks received his B.A. and M.D. degrees from Wayne State University. He is board certified in internal medicine, infectious diseases, and preventive medicine and general public health. He also holds an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health, an MBA from Auburn University and an MA in theology from the Reformed Theological Seminary.

- 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. For more information, visit www.health.usf.edu

- News release by Lisa Greene, USF Health Communications