USF Health Senior Vice President and MCOM Dean Charles J Lockwood, MD, MHCM, and Bryan Bognar, MD, MCOM chief academic officer, get a demonstration from Eric Pergola, director of USF IT Service Management during the Tech-IT Out event at the Shimberg Library.

One of the many challenges medical students face is managing opportunities for collaboration among students and with professors.  As the new USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute in downtown Tampa nears completion, USF Health leaders are addressing that challenge by providing students and faculty with innovative software that offers a digital hub for collaboration and teamwork.

In the new building, students will make use of Microsoft Teams to more effectively and efficiently communicate through online chat and meetings, calling and web conferencing. The goal is for medical students to never miss a day of their medical school education because their access to team learning is always available, said MCOM associate dean of Undergraduate Medical Education Deborah DeWaay, MD, FACP.

“One of the things we’ve struggled with is building community and better collaboration opportunities for students, while making sure we allow enough flexibility to avoid burnout,” said Deborah DeWaay, MD, MCOM vice dean of Undergraduate Medical Education. “This will allow us to do things that are exciting enough for students when they are on-site, while giving them the ability to participate remotely when they need to.”

Joe Ford, JD, associate vice president of USF Health Shared Student Services, and Carol Post, JD, associate vice president and chief administrative officer for USF Health, get a demonstration from Ryan Candler, Microsoft community development specialist during the Tech-IT Out event at the Shimberg Library.

Morsani College of Medicine leaders recently got a chance to test drive some of the Microsoft technology the students will have access to in the new building at a special demonstration in the new Tech-IT Out lab located in the Shimberg Library. As medical knowledge rapidly accrues so does the need to have access to it along with the technology needed to make it happen, according to Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM, senior vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.

“This begins to address the biggest challenge we have in medical education, which is the acceleration of medical knowledge,” Dr. Lockwood said.  “We have the opportunity to leverage technology and incorporate medical data into our talks, but also allow for a more interactive and engaging experience for the learners.”

The Microsoft devices on display include:

– Surface Book

– Surface Laptop

– Surface Pro

– Surface Go

– Surface Hub

– Surface Studio

These devices will be on display for demonstration in the library until the end of 2019.  USF Health leadership plans to organize small group visits, including first and second year medical students, to help them get acquainted with the new technology before moving into the new building.

Events and demonstrations are coordinated through Kristy Andre, USF IT’s Relationship Manager to MCOM at kandre@health.usf.edu.