On October 5, 2006, the Tampa Tribune newspaper published the following editorial on USF Health's recruitment of Dr. Robert Pedowitz - selected during a nationwide search to be the new chair of the Dept. of Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine in the USF College of Medicine. The Editorial appeared in the "Our Opinion" column of the Tampa Tribune.

USF Taps Prominent Surgeon to Head Orthpedic Unit
October 5, 2006
Tampa Tribune Editorial

The University of South Florida’s College of Medicine has secured what it has been lacking for years: an orthopedics department headed by a renowned surgeon capable of helping the college achieve its aspirations for national stature.
Until now, USF has been probably the only medical school in the country without an orthopedics department and one of the few without an orthopedics
residency training program, says Steve Klasko, vice president for health sciences and dean of the medical
school at USF.
Orthopedics has been missing at USF since 1990, when the orthopedics faculty
- mostly private-practice surgeons based at Tampa General Hospital - resigned en masse rather than meet the college’s demands for greater accountability in training surgical residents.
To restore orthopedics, the medical school has taken a significant departure
from the past and contracted with hospitals other than Tampa General, its primary teaching hospital. Orthopedics
will be run out of University
Community Hospital, Lakeland Regional Medical Center, the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, All Children’s Hospital, the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital and the Shriners Hospital for Children.
The university continues to have “a great relationship with Tampa General,”
Klasko says, but to create an orthopedics program of excellence, the school had to set the parameters, not the hospital’s surgeons.
On Wednesday, Klasko announced that Robert Pedowitz, chief of sports medicine at the University of California-
San Diego, will chair the orthopedics
department. Pedowitz is a consultant
for the National Football League Players Association and an expert on arthroscopic and reconstructive joint surgery. He also does research on tissue
re-engineering.
At USF, Pedowitz will get to build the newly designated state Center for Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma, supervising a department of six physicians.
He was drawn, in part, by the idea of taking what he has learned and building a center from scratch.
The hiring of Pedowitz - along with the earlier hiring of David Keefe as chair of obstetrics and gynecology - shows Klasko is serious about making USF a destination for those who want to be the best. The medical school attracted $170 million in research grants this year, a significant measure of success.
The public doesn’t pay much attention to medical school maneuverings, but what’s happening at USF is making this a better place to live. Klasko, who has been a tremendous addition to this community since his arrival two years ago, is ensuring not only that the medical school attains national recognition,
but that local residents get the best care possible.
A Coup For USF’s College of Medicine